TooFast4Radar

Last week I picked up a 2005 TL. It is a 1-owner car with 175k miles.

The Good:
It's rust free, drives well, doesn't pull, all body panels are straight. Has a decent set of Potenza's on it. Only paid $3700 for it.

The Bad:
- Has some small hail dents, driver seat has a tear in the perforated leather, sometimes it's a bit sloppy shifting in 3rd/4th, a couple of the door handle caps are missing, hood struts are weak and don't hold the hood up, Steering wheel leather is falling apart at the top, fake aluminum trim pieces on the center console have wear/scratches, passenger seat heater is weak/doesn't work like it should, scratches/scuffs on a couple wheels.

Immediate Projects/Parts Ordered:
- Aisin Timing Belt/Water Pump kit with tensioner and idler pulley, hood struts, 3rd/4th gear transmission pressure sensors.

Soon to do:
- Replace steering wheel, wrap center console side trim pieces, wet sand and re-clear headlights, reupholster interior and deep clean interior/carpets.

I'm doing all of the work myself which isn't that big of a deal. This car seems like child's play compared to pulling the Stealth R/T Turbo and 3000GT VR-4's I had many years ago. I do have some questions, though. I'm looking at different leather seat replacement kits and it seems the options are either Leatherseats.com or Auto Custom Leather (also found on e-Bay). Does anyone have experience with either of these? I like that the Leatherseats.com kit includes the door arm rest pieces and they have an option for their excstacy leather which appears to be a higher quality material. Has anyone purchased this on their car? How do the two companies compare?

A quick photo of the car is attached. I'll try to document the work as I go through it. Any questions or suggestions would be welcome!

Sandan

Hey bud,

I am in the same boat as yourself......I thought I paid more for my ride but after comparing it to your description I think I made out like a bandit......

I purchased a 05 TL 6MT @ 175K miles for $3500, exceptional interior leather and overall condition, ofcourse with cracks on the front dash, but the paint/wheels/tires and leather especially the drivers side seat was in exceptional condition. Timing belt was done @ 116K miles. Drove nice and tight but had some rattle in front suspension and I knew the reason why. This is the list of stuff that I did after getting the ride...
1) Front compliance bushing replaced it with OEM bushing ...DIYed it...
2) All 4 corners has Koni Orange struts...
3) Tranny fluid change
4) Hood Struts
5) Rear calipers (didnt need this but since I was in there chnaging the rotors might as well change the calipers installed the RED calipers fron RA...real cheap with core)
6) front brake rotors and pads(didn't need this but might as well bring it up to date)
7) Engine oil and filter
8) Air filter and cabin filter
9) Front Mud Flaps OEM Keeps the car clean longer as the front wheels are not splashing muck all over the car....)
10) Open item: Still have to figure out why there is this little bit of rattle coming from the front end when going over small puddles like a rumbler strip...

Now to your question, what i would recommend is google search "Leatherseats excstacy leather review", it does not really matter if it is on a TL you need to know the longevity and over all experience on people who have installed this material...especially the smell part as these artificial materials can have really bad odor ....below is what I found about that leather on a simple gooogle search on evolution forum...

"
So here is what I got:
- Premium Leather Kit in single-Tone
- Ecstasy Leather upgrade (Graphite)
- Perforated "Combo"
- Double Stitched with Silver thread
- #139 embroidered in Black
- Center Console lid with Ecstasy Leather top

So what is Ecstasy leather you ask? It is pure Butta baby. I swear the swatches they sent me (for free) of the Ecstasy and their normal leather simply don't do it justice. Make no mistake, I have no doubt their normal leather feels sweet too. The swatches of those really felt sweet. But this stuff is aptly named Ecstasy. I haven't even installed it yet and all I want to do is lay down on these things.

The perforation "combo" describes what is perforated. In this case it means the entire length of where your sit, excluding side bolsters from your knees to your shoulder blades.

"Premium" describes how much of the seat is leather vs vinyl. This picture shows it best compared to their "Deluxe" kit:

What isn't clear from the picture is that the top of the front arm rest is leather. Also the rear arm rest is leather where your arm rests, but not the part that faces you when the arm rest is stowed away.

The graphite looks to match the interior perfectly. A small part of me is still wondering if I shouldn't have done some sort of two-tone but really I'm sort of low-key with my cars so I think this suites me well. Ironically this is pretty much exactly what the leather looks like [shrug] I like what I like.

The #139 logo is for my Special Edition Number; #139 of 340 made.....

"

One advise would be to buy the kit and get it professionally installed as you are dealing with the airbags in the seats and you don't want to accidentally deploy those, cause it will trigger the SRS light and cause all sorts of problem, not to mention the exorbitant cost to get hands on an airbag mounted seat...
Let me know if you need any help ....my ride is the same exact color as yours and has that blue tinted glass as well...

Drives like a dream and pulls like a cheetah ....absolutely love the handling and MPG's ....that I am getting from a 17+yrs old car with 175 K miles on it....avg mpg 27 miles per gallon....


Sandan

sockr1

iTrader: (5)

congrats on the car purchase! someone did a full write up on here regarding leatherseats so just search google using "search words site:acurazine.com" to narrow searches to acurazine.

another seat option that is becoming very popular are the clazzio seat covers sold by endlessrpm. you can get the diamond pattern or the single color option and they run about 400-500 and from what i've heard they fit very well and look good.

for anything TL related, look at the following websites: excelerate performance, heeltoe auto, endless rpm, rv6, and acuraoemparts

MyGuti

just for clarification regarding the clazzio seat covers......they go over top of the existing seat material correct?

sockr1

iTrader: (5)

yea

TooFast4Radar

They don't seem to fit the same way the replacement leather kits I've been looking at. They appear to be slip-over covers instead of direct replacements since they go over the rear plastic panel on the back of the front seats. The leather (if it is real leather) doesn't look as nice. Some of those kits also look like something you would expect to see on a pimped out 80's Cadillac. I think I would rather spend a little more and get a better fit and a nicer material. I knew full well that I would be putting some money into the car when I got it, but I don't want to cut corners on the seats. That's one of the most important parts of a car from a driver experience. I want to be comfortable and have at least OEM feel and preferably better.

truonghthe

Leather seat.com is nicer than the one offer on Ebay since you can customize how much leather you want or certain design. However they do not make the cover for Type S folk so we end up going to local shop or ebay.

TooFast4Radar

I don't want anything exotic, just one color leather and matching stitching. Do you know if the standard leather on the LeatherSeats.com kit is comparable to the leather on the Auto Custom Leather kit? I've done a fair share of google searching but can't find much to compare the quality of the two. To get all seat faces in full leather and perforated front seats it's almost the exact same price.

This is the kit I was referring to:
2004 - 2008 Acura TL Black (Ebony) Leather Replacement Seat Covers | eBay

The one thing that makes the LeatherSeats.com kit most attractive is the included door arm rest pieces to recover those. To upgrade it to their top grade leather will increase the price by $275 over the Auto Custom Leather. It's a tough choice!

truonghthe

I would go with leatherseat.com if I ever need replace my Base TL seat.