Carpets for chim

[V8 GRF]

Goaty Bill said:

Have you tried the local TVR Car Club chapter? TVRCC Chapters

Regions not Chapters

I thought it was the Hell's Angel who had Chapters?

[Mr Nordic]

I have recently replaced mine and completed the work myself, it takes a while to do and you need quality adhesive which is not cheap.
The carpet set comes in a lot of pieces and each one needs fitting to the car and you need to fit them in a specific order, the adhesive is contact and therefore you only get one shot at fitting so I would assume due to the risk this may also increase the cost.

It is very staright forward to do yourself but you need to take your time, i replaced all my chassis bolts under the carpet at the same time as well and it took me 3 full days.

Good luck

[swanny71]

Mr Nordic said:

The carpet set comes in a lot of pieces and each one needs fitting to the car and you need to fit them in a specific order, the adhesive is contact and therefore you only get one shot at fitting so I would assume due to the risk this may also increase the cost.

Good luck

This the only part of the process I'm concerned about when I DIY my carpets - but taking my time and properly dry fitting should reduce any potential for cock ups

[ChimpofDarkness]

Quotes of £1000+ are way off target IMO; £600.00 (ish) is the going rate to supply & fit decent quality carpets in a Chimaera.

I would suggest you shouldn't need to pay more, but you most certainly don't want to pay much less.

If you do you'll likely be getting inferior materials, unskilled labour, a rush job or all of these things; as such I guarantee you'll end up regretting it in the long run.

Saying that, I've seen Dave The Trimmer's work which appears excellent.

If Dave is quoting £550.00 to supply, make up, & fit good quality carpet to a Chimaera (as a drive in drive out job) I'd bite his arm off.

I paid Garry Creasey of "Hoods & Trims" £600.00 for exactly this, I consider it money well spent & good value.

http://www.hoodsandtrims.co.uk/

Using top quality Wilton carpet from Martrim.

http://www.martrim.co.uk/catalogue/wool-wilton-car...

Don't underestimate the time involved, it's the best part of two days work for an experienced trimmer to do the job properly.

Also don't underestimate the amount of material needed, it's a small car sure, but even with careful cutting out there's quite a bit of wastage due to the number of panels & their intricate shapes.

Here's what I'd consider a reasonable estimated breakdown of labour & costs:

Ripping out: 4 Hours including removal of seats, door cards & rear hood
Making up, including binding of edges: 4.5 Hours
Fitting: 5 Hours including refitting seats, door cards & rear hood
Total labour: 13.5 Hours @ £35hr
Materials (Wilton carpet, leathercloth binding, adhesive ect): £145.00
Grand total: £617.00

You could do the ripping out yourself but most decent trimmers would prefer to do the job themselves as they will make each new panel to the old template as it comes out.

It's a similar story with a carpet set, to fit one properly you really need to have been there during the ripping out stage, and there's no guarantee the carpet set will be a good fit in something like a TVR as measurements vary a bit from car to car.

I think it's one of those jobs you either do yourself from start to finish or hand over to a professional trimmer.

If you do it yourself you really need a clean, dry and well lit working environment with plenty of space to move around the car.

You'll also need some equipment, not least a decent set of shears which aren't cheap & you'll probably never use them again.

With a carpet kit coming in at £350.00, plus equipment and other sundries like adhesive adding a further £70.00 you're probably looking at £420.00 to do a half decent job.

So there's only really £200.00 to be saved doing it yourself, at this point you need to ask yourself if the end result is going to compete with a professional trimmer that's been doing this type of work for years?

When I was involved in restoration we outsourced all but the most simple trimming jobs to a professional, you'll find most restorers do the same unless they are lucky enough to have an on-site trimmer.

There's good reason for this, trimming is a specialist skill that takes time to learn properly, you also don't want to be doing this type of work in an oily workshop.

I'm not trying to put anyone off doing it themselves, indeed I am recolouring & restoring some seats myself at the moment.

But when it comes to carpets, you've got to ask yourself if it's worth the £200.00 saving?

Or look at it another way, £200.00 to have a professional trimmer with years of experience doing the job for you is fantastic value for money.

I'd happily pay that extra £200.00 every time



EDIT: It seems Central TVR will charge you £550.00 plus the VAT to supply & fit a set or carpets in a Chimaera.



http://www.centraltvr.com/product/chimaera-re-carp...

So that's £660.00 for polypropylene, like Goaty Bill says there's a world of difference between polypropylene & high end wool Wilton carpet.

I can vouch for the quality of the Martrim Wilton stock, it's very high end and far superior to what TVR fitted, even if you ticked the expensive wool carpet option box.

I've had absolutely no fading, after three punishing 40 degree South of France summers my Martrim carpets look as good at the day Gary Creasey fitted them.

The bottom line is £600 for fully fitted Wilton carpets with the correct bound edging is very good value indeed.

Edited by ChimpofDarkness on Monday 22 October 15:16

[swanny71]

For me a large part of the fun of owning a TVR is being able to do jobs like this yourself - I've said it before but my TVR is as much a hobby as a form of transport.
Saving £300 is just a bonus on top of spending a few weekends having fun in the garage re-vamping my interior. The results almost certainly won't be as good those a pro could produce - but I'm happy with the trade off.

[HaywooS]

I would quite happily pay £300 to have the carpets fitted, what price I pay for the carpets themselves depends on the quality I choose. I suspect the carpets on Ebay for £210 won't be as good a quality as the £540 ones from Coverdale, so that is my choice, but £600 for fitting has nothing to do with the quality of the carpets, I suspect it would be the same whatever the quality of the carpets, but I am not paying £600 for fitting even though I can afford it.

[swanny71]

The £210 carpets are polypropylene and definately not as good as Wilton carpets.

Setting aside my fetish for DIY'ing as many jobs as possible, I can't see the point spending extra on expensive carpets in my Chimp which is at best 'average' cosmetically. For me paying top dollar to fit average carpets makes no sense either - the big bucks will be spent making it stop/go/corner as well as possible.

As you say it's personal choice.

[SILICONEKID340HP]

I personally think these companies making the carpet sets are taking the ps

This is the Coverdale GT Carpet Set - Blenheim Range £152 wool £200. 22 pieces .you work that one out !

TVR carpet set has 15 pieces..

http://www.carcarpets.co.uk/mgb-gt-4-synchro-carpe...

[ChimpofDarkness]

swanny71 said:

For me a large part of the fun of owning a TVR is being able to do jobs like this yourself - I've said it before but my TVR is as much a hobby as a form of transport.
Saving £300 is just a bonus on top of spending a few weekends having fun in the garage re-vamping my interior. The results almost certainly won't be as good those a pro could produce - but I'm happy with the trade off.

Totally agree Swanny, I'm all for a bit of DIY, as you know I'm busy restoring my XJS seats at the moment & enjoying it immensely.

Restoring the seats myself made sense as the quote from my local Furniture Clinic franchise was £350, while the materials to do the job myself were only £120.00 including a mini compressor.

In percentage terms that's a big saving, and being seats they are easier to work with than the carpeting job given I no longer have a workshop.

When I weighed everything up the saving on doing the carpets myself just wasn't big enough.

Just for clarity, I paid £600 in total for all materials (Wilton carpet) and the complete making up & fitting from Gary Creasey at "Hoods & Trims" in St Albans.

I still say that's great value for what I got, dropped the car off on Sunday evening & picked it up on Wednesday evening after handing over £600.00 all in, I never lifted a finger, they are way better quality than what TVR fitted at the factory.

I subscribe to a policy of outsourcing as little as possible.

But if I dont have the facilities & I know a professional will do a better job for not much more, then these days I'll happily write the cheque.

But more power to your elbow Swanny, like you say doing this type of thing is all part of the fun of owning a TVR (or any classic car come to that).

The satisfaction & sense of personal achievement gained from maintaining/improving the car yourself is a all part of the fun.

I just wish I had my old workshop & four post lift back

Thanks for your tips by the way, I had a suspicion that Jag would have saved a few quid by using vinyl on the seat backs.

So this weekend I separated the squab from backrest which allowed me to remove & inspect the seat back panel.

Sure enough the seat back panel is vinyl, or what I would call leathercloth.

So cheers for your tips about the cross linker products, I'm expecting the complete kit to arrive from the furniture clinic tomorrow.



Seats split into their key parts, this will allow me to do a far better job of the restoration than working on them fully assembled:




Test colour change of leather adjuster covers from cream to Doeskin using Glyptone Scuffmaster:




Pretty happy with the little test pieces as it was just a sponge job at this stage, they should look great with a final airbrushed dye coat and four coats of airbrushed sealant (2 gloss knocked back with 2 satin coats).

Edited by ChimpofDarkness on Monday 22 October 16:33

[Goaty Bill]

V8 GRF said:

Goaty Bill said:

Have you tried the local TVR Car Club chapter? TVRCC Chapters

Regions not Chapters

I thought it was the Hell's Angel who had Chapters?

And vintage car club of canada, proper bunch of hooligans

[brett84]

the other thing for me was resale value, although I have no plans to ever sell. I just thought as there is so much carpet and the piping would be so visable if the finish wasn't spot on it would reduce the value and appeal should I ever need to sell

[HaywooS]

I would love to do it all myself but age, I'm 68, and the fact that I work away up in Aberdeen for 5 days each week means I haven't got the time to do the job. I used to do virtually all the work on my previous cars including rebuilding a Formula Jumior engine which was fitted in a frog eye sprite and masses of work on a TR3A and a TR6 but those days are over, body won't bend into the same positions as it was when I was younger. but I have always yearned after a TVR and when I finally got one I want to cherish it.
So paying for work is now what happens and as usual there have been some great comments from you TVR nuts with the concensus of opinion that £600 for fitting is too high so I will be looking at all the possibilities including long journeys to get the work done.

Thanks guys your input has been invaluable.

[SSPPGG]

my car is just back from dave the trimmer after hood and carpet replacement. (see my winter refurb thread - griff)

fantastic job, im really happy

the carpet quality was great, he had some options, but suggested i went for a particular carpet which would finish well, and had a high quality

he removed all the old stuff, and made the carpets to suit from the pattern the old ones. he wont supply a "set" for DIY, as he said there is too much variance in the tvr to do that properly.....

the cost was 550 all in, done in the 4 day timescale quoted. (he fitted a roof at the same time, also spot on).

whilst i like working on my car........trimming to this standard is not achievable by me, so not really an option.

[Simon says]

ChimpofDarkness said:

Quotes of £1000+ are way off target IMO; £600.00 (ish) is the going rate to supply & fit decent quality carpets in a Chimaera.

I would suggest you shouldn't need to pay more, but you most certainly don't want to pay much less.

If you do you'll likely be getting inferior materials, unskilled labour, a rush job or all of these things; as such I guarantee you'll end up regretting it in the long run.

Saying that, I've seen Dave The Trimmer's work which appears excellent.

If Dave is quoting £550.00 to supply, make up, & fit good quality carpet to a Chimaera (as a drive in drive out job) I'd bite his arm off.

I paid Garry Creasey of "Hoods & Trims" £600.00 for exactly this, I consider it money well spent & good value.

http://www.hoodsandtrims.co.uk/

Using top quality Wilton carpet from Martrim.

http://www.martrim.co.uk/catalogue/wool-wilton-car...

Don't underestimate the time involved, it's the best part of two days work for an experienced trimmer to do the job properly.

Also don't underestimate the amount of material needed, it's a small car sure, but even with careful cutting out there's quite a bit of wastage due to the number of panels & their intricate shapes.

Here's what I'd consider a reasonable estimated breakdown of labour & costs:

Ripping out: 4 Hours including removal of seats, door cards & rear hood
Making up, including binding of edges: 4.5 Hours
Fitting: 5 Hours including refitting seats, door cards & rear hood
Total labour: 13.5 Hours @ £35hr
Materials (Wilton carpet, leathercloth binding, adhesive ect): £145.00
Grand total: £617.00

You could do the ripping out yourself but most decent trimmers would prefer to do the job themselves as they will make each new panel to the old template as it comes out.

It's a similar story with a carpet set, to fit one properly you really need to have been there during the ripping out stage, and there's no guarantee the carpet set will be a good fit in something like a TVR as measurements vary a bit from car to car.

I think it's one of those jobs you either do yourself from start to finish or hand over to a professional trimmer.

If you do it yourself you really need a clean, dry and well lit working environment with plenty of space to move around the car.

You'll also need some equipment, not least a decent set of shears which aren't cheap & you'll probably never use them again.

With a carpet kit coming in at £350.00, plus equipment and other sundries like adhesive adding a further £70.00 you're probably looking at £420.00 to do a half decent job.

So there's only really £200.00 to be saved doing it yourself, at this point you need to ask yourself if the end result is going to compete with a professional trimmer that's been doing this type of work for years?

When I was involved in restoration we outsourced all but the most simple trimming jobs to a professional, you'll find most restorers do the same unless they are lucky enough to have an on-site trimmer.

There's good reason for this, trimming is a specialist skill that takes time to learn properly, you also don't want to be doing this type of work in an oily workshop.

I'm not trying to put anyone off doing it themselves, indeed I am recolouring & restoring some seats myself at the moment.

But when it comes to carpets, you've got to ask yourself if it's worth the £200.00 saving?

Or look at it another way, £200.00 to have a professional trimmer with years of experience doing the job for you is fantastic value for money.

I'd happily pay that extra £200.00 every time



EDIT: It seems Central TVR will charge you £550.00 plus the VAT to supply & fit a set or carpets in a Chimaera.



http://www.centraltvr.com/product/chimaera-re-carp...

So that's £660.00 for polypropylene, like Goaty Bill says there's a world of difference between polypropylene & high end wool Wilton carpet.

I can vouch for the quality of the Martrim Wilton stock, it's very high end and far superior to what TVR fitted, even if you ticked the expensive wool carpet option box.

I've had absolutely no fading, after three punishing 40 degree South of France summers my Martrim carpets look as good at the day Gary Creasey fitted them.

The bottom line is £600 for fully fitted Wilton carpets with the correct bound edging is very good value indeed.

Edited by ChimpofDarkness on Monday 22 October 15:16

I agree.

[Quietlybonkers]

We seem to be a clan of two then, OP, as I at 59 also don't do upside down in the footwell, or trying to fiddle with the wiring around the battery. Also, my mechanical limits are meccano things like changing a clutch and gearbox.......which I did on a 998 cc mini in 1974. These days I leave it to the professionals, safe in the knowledge that nothing will fall off or catch fire while i am belting around on a track day or on the Queen's highway

[Goaty Bill]

I think the last brett84, HaywooS, and SSPPGG sum it for me on one major point.

There are some things that really just need to be done by a professional, unless you are absolutely certain of your skills, or have the time and money to start again when it goes wrong.

To me, the finish on a car like a TVR is as important as anything mechanical.
Let's face it, one of the reasons we bought these cars is because they look awesome.

I well remember the unexpected thrill of driving my near new car down the road and turning every head on the street, even in places like Wimbledon Village and Chelsea, where top of the range sports cars are as common as bugs on a bumper.
As it happens, the old girl can still have that effect even today, and I am sure most of you have experienced it as well.

I admit, I have occasionally risked all and repaired a few rock chips myself, but I asked a lot of questions of an experienced professional before I even considered purchasing the sandpaper and polish.

By all means, if working on your own car is what you love, then do it, and for what it's worth, you have my respect for doing so.
I grew up in an environment of doing exactly that. But my father was a journeyman machinist and a master mechanic; it had it's advantages (as did his fully tooled workshop). But I never once saw him try to do any woodwork or upholstery on his vintage/veteran cars, he always left even the simplest of related things to a top craftsman. (Ref: Clint Eastwood "A man's gotta know his own limitations.")

Mine will be going to an experienced TVR trimmer from the 'old days', and I will pay the premium, because I want the new carpet job to look exactly like the original one; no 'improvements', 'enhancements', or shortcuts. After all, I am the one that has to sit there and notice every little imperfection, every day that I drive it.

[swanny71]

Goaty Bill said:

Mine will be going to an experienced TVR trimmer from the 'old days', and I will pay the premium, because I want the new carpet job to look exactly like the original one; no 'improvements', 'enhancements', or shortcuts. After all, I am the one that has to sit there and notice every little imperfection, every day that I drive it.

Judging by the shoddy way my original carpets are fitted I reckon I can easily match this DIY

If I wanted perfect fit/finish/quality etc. then I'd definately be taking it to a professional and paying the premium.

Instead I'll be happy with new black (rather than dirty cream coloured) carpets that aren't faded, smelly, peeling off the body and stained with glue - I can manage that.

[Goaty Bill]

swanny71 said:

Judging by the shoddy way my original carpets are fitted I reckon I can easily match this DIY

If I wanted perfect fit/finish/quality etc. then I'd definately be taking it to a professional and paying the premium.

Instead I'll be happy with new black (rather than dirty cream coloured) carpets that aren't faded, smelly, peeling off the body and stained with glue - I can manage that.

I know what you mean, but mine really were quite good. Note: "were"

There were also a few 'details', more in the hidden areas, that could have been better without a doubt, so maybe some 'improvement' or 'enhancement' should be allowed after all.
My point being I want it to look much like it did when it left the factory, or as near the best it could have done within practical limitations, had every detail been correct.
And I know I can't do that myself.

I always thought 'cream' or magnolia was just too light, for a top off sports car, to be practical.
I walked away from the sister car to mine, principally because of the magnolia interior.
Even my 'biscuit' interior needs a weekly wipe down at the least, if the roof has been off at all.
I've always avoided black because it seems to make the interior details of the car 'disappear'.
But, you gotta drive it, not me, and if it 'turns your crank' so to speak...

[SSPPGG]

ive had a couple kit cars,

some of the carpet seats were bloody awful, stitching done by a blind man after a beer or 10, binding all over the place.


some were just spot on, and it showed in the finished article.

i looked at the stitching done on my carpet trim edging by "dave the trim". even all round, equal spacing between rows.

i removed a floor mat. the velcro was glued to the floor tidily, no mess. the velcro was sewn to the carpet really tidily

props if you can do it yourself. I can't to that standard, so am very happy to pay him to do a job i cant do........and it does make you think better of the finished job, the trim is so visible

[vaurien]

I was surprised when I had read how less carpet you have in your car.......or how much you pay for the 1/2 kit.

Here a comparision of our "full carpet kit" of a Chimaera MK II incl. doors and 2. garn floor mat for pilot and
copilot.

Certainly the martial can be different but the quantity too ? Possible you discriminate between carpet kit and
carpet kit. But please tell me how because I would like to understand the system. By us is one full carpet-kit
this what the pictures show.

Regards

Gregor


P.S.: on one pices is missing a little rubber-protection.