A few months ago, one of the other FD owners here in CS told me about a lady that does reupholstery and she does it on the cheap...as in $125 per seat, and I had to buy the material. I thought that sounded pretty good.

On Nov 7th, 2009, my friend Morris took me by his house and showed me his seats that she did. They looked great! I decided that day to get the material and drop off the seats as soon as possible. We went to Hancock Fabrics right away and I picked up 5 yards of fake suede (in black) for $75...Morris used the same exact color and material. I'm really just listing this for posterity and so you get an idea on pricing btw.

For the record, I thought this was a woman about in her 60s. No, she's more like around her 80s, but she seems like she's pretty well with it still. She told me she does this job on the side, and she has a job at the convenience store right down the street where she works a good bit of the time, about 8 hours a day. No big deal. Morris told me before we went over there that he had just helped her move, TWICE, and the second time was back into the place they had just moved her out of and it was a time span of about a week, so he was already displeased with that. And he said she took a while on his second seat, and he had made the mistake of paying her in advance for the second one (she takes money for the first seat when you drop them off, and the rest of the payment when you pick them up). I had no problem with that because I was going to be in NCO Academy for 6-7 weeks anyway and wouldn't have time for anything else.

So we met her, gave her the material and the deposit, and I either dropped off my seat that night or the next night, I don't remember. She told me then that she was working on someone else's seats and it would be a week or two before she got started on mine...no biggie, NCOA and all. I figured they would still be done by the time I graduated on Dec 17th, or around that time. How wrong I was.

I also talked to another FD friend Frank about this and he decided he'd take his over too since he was doing his LS2 swap anyway.

Now in this time, I decided I wanted blue thread like Subaru's have, so that took a little extra time, about a week or so. She also told me she needed more money for foam because my seat needed to be done a bit differently than Morris's and it needed a special kind of foam, and so did Frank's, so we paid her extra for that, I think around $60 or $80 but I don't remember (I have it on a list at home). I also wanted her to make me some shift and ebrake boots to match the seats, that was an extra $25. The thread was an extra $35 because she usually used black and didn't have blue.

Also in this time, a couple times she gave me around-a-bout dates when they should be complete, and ended up pushing it back a couple times.

Fast forward to early last week...she told me they would be ready by Friday (1 Jan). She called me Thursday and told me they wouldn't be ready because she was going to take the day off (take some time to herself, as she told me so many times because "I worked so many hours at the store" blah blah blah, I can't even count how many times I heard that). She said she'd call me on Saturday (2 Jan) to come pick them up because she had them all threaded together and she just had to install them on the seats, and it should only take her a couple hours, tops.

I had plans to leave on Sunday to come home for my Grandpa's funeral, and I'm still home now, coming back on Saturday. She called me last Saturday and said they wouldn't be ready because she had to order some clips to install the covers...she had thought she would be able to use the old ones but they broke. Ok, that couldn't have been figured out and ordered before? She said they'd be ready by Tuesday (5 Jan).

I figured I better call her tonight and see if they were finished and ready to pick up. When I talked to her last Saturday we agreed I could pick them up when I got back this Saturday. I called tonight at 720 mountain time...

She told me I called too late. I told her I had always called her around this time and she never said anything. She said that she thought I knew it was too late. I said how am I supposed to know it's too late if you didn't tell me? I didn't know what time you got off work. She said what time do you get off work, 7pm? I said no, but I don't know what time YOU get off work. I asked her what time she was getting off work Saturday and she said 2pm. I asked her if I could get the seats then, and she said let's wait til Sunday because I need some time to myself.

At this point, I've about had it with "I need some time to myself". She's already busted the suspense numerous times...charged me AND Frank more than what we originally were told (I can understand some things, but it's getting out of hand now)...gets onto me for calling too late when she never told me it was too late before?!?!

She told me tonight that she doesn't usually deal with customers after 5pm. Oh, so this is a business now? And I'm a customer now? It was OK before, but now it's not. Well if this is now a business, she needs to treat it like one, whether it's done from home or a different location, and whatever time of day especially when she's busted suspenses left and right. If I'm the customer, I'm throwing down the "customer is always right" card, cause this is BULLSHIT!

I swear, if I didn't have horrendous ordeals with my car, I wouldn't have any at all. I always think "oh it's a good deal and this one CAN'T go wrong", and it always comes back to bite me in the *** somehow.

 

Is this for real? if so..... Dude she is an 80 year old woman, and not an upholstery shop!!! what do you expect?

 

Yeah gunna have to go with Blue here. Gotta remember that this is an 80 year old woman who does this in her spare time. Sheez...

 

Yeah, i kinda agree with the above. My 80 year old grandma fixes my work jeans, and takes a couple of weeks to do it. I don't complain though, cause she's 80. If she were 40, well that would be weird.

 

LOL so you changed the "order" 3-4 times and you already knew she was slow doing it and you are pissed because it has taken a while? Really?

 

Are you guys ******* serious?

Let me explain something, very simply obviously...and I know it was alot to read, but please try to stay with me here...

I don't give a **** how old she is. SHE is the one who chose to reupholster seats, not me. I am not making her upholster seats, she chose this. She is also apparently choosing to now claim this is a business. It's a business or it's not a business, it's not both. If she claims it's a business, then she needs to act like it's one; take responsibility for busting the schedule several times, etc. I also believe "the customer is always right" would fit in here (although I do not ALWAYS believe the customer is right, I think it FULLY applies here, obviously). If it's not a business, it shouldn't matter what time of night I call her because technically I'm not a customer, and even then, it's 720PM!!! Why didn't she tell me before that it was too late? Anyway, in that case, I would also not consider it such a hurry. However, I think I've waited long enough, even if it's not considered a business.

Also, I did not change the order 3 to 4 times. Where the hell did you get that? The only thing I told her was that I wanted blue thread, and that was in the beginning. And in that case, I understand it's gonna take even a little longer than originally planned. But how long would it take someone, even someone that is 80, to go to the store and get a spool of thread?! I also told her I wanted the shift and ebrake boots, also in the beginning, and not much of an ADDITION (not a change really) at that. The only other thing was we took my friend's seats, which doesn't affect my order at all because she only does 1 set (pair in most cases actually) of seats at a time, it's not like she's working on several like an upholstery shop.

Bottom line is this...she is taking my money to do a job. Although we didn't agree on a set time, 2 months to do 2 seat covers is ******* ridiculous (especially when she does job after job after job of the same thing, it's not like she's new at this). I probably could have done that and I've never sewn anything IN MY LIFE. And if I'd have known what I know now, I probably would have gone that route. SHE set the standard several times (I'm referring to when they'd be completed), and SHE DID NOT meet her own standard all those times. How is that my fault exactly? Any time she needed money for more things, I never argued, I gave her the money, and promptly at that. Any time she told me she needed time to herself, I never had a problem with that either. So where am I wrong in this issue? She's the one not meeting her own standard, I have nothing to do with that.

Time management people...if she knows things are broken and need to be ordered, figure that out as early as you can and get the stuff ordered. If she can't figure out how to do this stuff in a timely manner, or at least to meet HER OWN STANDARD, then maybe she shouldn't be doing it, and I can take my stuff to someone who will get it done in less than TWO ******* MONTHS.

Furthermore, I think you guys are confused about how well this lady functions. She may be 80 something, but she's moving around like she's no more than 50 or 60. She's ******* a guy that's like 40 years old, I didn't mention that part before because it's kinda gross and has nothing to do with this really. However, since you guys apparently didn't get what I meant by "still pretty well with it", I figured I'd throw that in. So she's probably not like your 80 year old Grandma cpnneeda. And not really like any other 80 year old I know of. I mean, she LOOKS old, but she sure doesn't act or maneuver like it...ugh, bad picture in my head.

 

She called me today to apologize for the way she talked to me the other day but said she has an issue in her family and she just didn't know how to handle it and couldn't handle talking to anyone else that night. I told her I understood why she would be upset in that case.

Then she told me she didn't get finished with everything this weekend so I couldn't pick them up today after all. What a surprise. She is getting off work today at 2pm mind you. She said she's working until 9 tomorrow night, and 9 Tuesday night, so she won't get to work on them until Wednesday. I asked her what needed to be done, cause I figure it might be something I can do myself or I can take it somewhere else, I don't really care at this point. She said most of the seat is finished, including the part to sit on. She said it was just the back part that she was having problems with. I said "well, I think I'm just going to pick them up today anyway". She said "I'm not home right now" and I said "I'm talking about later tonight. It's been over two months and I can't wait any longer." She told me she wanted to work on them some more because someone else would charge me more because they had to redo what she's already done, and that it's her fault they're not done and she wants to see it through. She told me she will work on them tomorrow night after she gets off work at 9 and I can pick them up tomorrow night.

So we're in the same situation...busting suspense once again. If she really is going to come through this time, I think she'll probably work on it today after she gets off work, I don't know why she wouldn't. I understand that she's having issues in her family and I feel for her, but like I said, it's been over two months, and the majority of that time she didn't have family problems, so I have no sympathy when it comes to that time.

 

This is an epic story. I feel your pain.

 

Thanks.

I honestly don't see how this is any different than say, buying a part from a company or person, and then the company or person either doesn't send the part or they take two months to do it. If that was the case for most of these other guys that are asking me "what do you expect", they would lose their damn minds. What does it matter how old she is, or any other factor of the situation? I've given her extra money when she needed without protest, and any time she wanted to take some time to herself I never had a problem with it or made a big deal about it. But I guess it's OK for her to keep failing to meet a standard that SHE set herself. By taking this job, she said she would do the job (and she did actually say she would do a GREAT job, and I still believe that because I've seen the results), but so far she has not come through, and I'm upset about that.

I'm glad some people understand why I'm upset, and I really don't see how others don't get that. I'm sure they've been in similar situations and reacted the same way, yet I can't. Whatever.

 

This story is ridiculous. She's an 80 year old woman who is doing this as a second job to pay the bills, not to mention she's charging you like a 7th of what it costs from a real shop. One that you know does that stuff for a living.

I think your problem is you just didn't have the right expectations going into this transaction. Remember the old adage you get what you pay for?

Look, I know your situation sucks cause you paid money, you don't have what you want, and still have no finished seats. But if I was in your situation I would have run some serious risk/reward scenarios and saw that for 75 bucks, something like this was a real posibility. Honestly it's a posibility any time you deal with someone who does a side job without filing a schedule C and you don't know alot about the person doing it.

 

Change #1 I decided I wanted blue thread like Subaru's have,

Change #2 I also wanted her to make me a shift boot

Change #3 I also wanted her to make me a ebrake boot

Math is serious

 

Have you seen fdnewbie on this forum? 6 months to a year for some products and people sing his praises....it is not all that uncommon unfortunately

 

I thought I would make an argument, however this is too absurd to address in any manner other than the following: This is an rx7 / rotary forum! Not someplace to **** and moan about your troubles with some poor old lady who must supplement her crap wages by dealing with snotty kids who have no understanding of what it's like to be 80 years old. Not to mention the fact that she must worry about how she will pay rent and exorbitant heating bills if she breaks a hip on her way to a menial job with, at best, limited benefits. Have a little empathy perhaps even some respect and compassion.

That being said, I appreciate your situation and would have already given the lady a believable line of bullshit as to why I need the seats and compensated further for her efforts and any frustration caused by the situation, This way the lady doesn't feel bad and she gets some needed cash, not to mention it would be a small price to assuage your own frustrations.

 

F*ck yo' seats Eric!

 

^ ---- hahah

Fast, reliable, or cheap... When dealing with old ladies you can only pick one

 

I highly doubt this lady is 80 years old. She probably only looks 80. I'm pretty sure if she were 80 she wouldn't need to work 8+hour shifts at a grocery store, because I'm pretty sure she wouldn't even be able to punch buttons on the cash register let alone pick up the seats to reupholster them. She's probably around 50s-60s, but was fat in the past and now that she's old she's gotten saggy.

But regardless, having to wait so long for a person to reupholster seats is ridiculous. She accepted money to do work on something, therefore she needs to come thru.

Imagine if you brought your car to have your tires changed for $10 each. I'm pretty sure you'd be pissed if the guy was 80, worked at your local grocery store and it took him a month to change them.

He even offered to take the seats back and take them somewhere else, but she wouldn't let him. He has a legit excuse to be mad at her for keeping his seats and his money.

 

I find it funny that you guys don’t even know her financial situation, and for that matter, neither do I. However, I believe since I’m the only one that has met her, seen her place, etc., I have a MUCH better idea than you do. I’m not saying she’s rich, but I don’t think she’s poor either.

If you would have actually read the thread, you would conclude that $75 is just for the materials. Starting cost for each seat is $125 (still a great deal IMO), but with all the extra money I’ve put in, I’m not sure how you came about that I am paying a 7th of what it would normally cost. How much do you think it costs to get seats done, $3000? If any of you guys would do the math, you’d see that I’m now paying just about $450 (maybe less but not by much). At this rate, for another $150 I could have bought some skins from leathergoods.com (or even just $400 for some from the same company but on eBay) and swapped them myself. So I’m not sure that I’m saving a whole hell of a lot of money at this point. The only thing that is keeping me happy is that I know she does good work, and I commend her for that. I would also be very disgruntled if I got anything less than that at this point. And for your information, as I’ve said before, she does A LOT of these jobs, it’s not like I’m one of the very first ones. She told me she’s been doing this for years. So as far as I’m concerned, aside from having more personnel to help her, only doing one job at a time (which I actually think is a great idea), and doing it out of her home, I don’t see how she’s much different than a dedicated shop.

What are the “serious risk/reward scenarios” you speak of? I guess she could have died while she had my seats and I wouldn’t be able to get them back. Other than that, I’m not sure what scenarios I would have come up with. Like I’ve said before, she may be 80, but she gets around like she’s no more than 50 or 60, and she doesn’t seem the least bit frail, especially if she’s nailing a ~40 year old dude. Copy?

You are right on one thing though…I did not have the right expectations going into this. I expected her to not take forever to do a job that doesn’t take forever, and to not keep pushing back her own schedule of completion…I expected to be able to take her at her word. I guess that is something that is becoming an unreasonable request in this day and age.

You’re right, math is serious, but unfortunately for you, in this case you have to be able to read before you do the math.

Like I tried to spell out for you very simply before…

I decided on the blue thread and shift and ebrake boots in the beginning, before she even started work on my seats, so how exactly does that push back the timeline? Nice try, but go back to hooked on phonics if you need help, don’t expect me to keep spelling it out for you, it’s getting old.

Yes, I’ve bought stuff from Ramy before too, and if you take notice, there is just a SLIGHT difference between Ramy’s situation and this lady’s. In most cases where Ramy takes a while, it’s because he’s looking for super rare pieces on a DIFFERENT CONTINENT. She, however, is not. She is looking for stuff that is readily available in the U.S., and most of the time in this same city. However, on the stuff that Ramy takes a while on that is available here and not hard to find, I apply the same rules. I understand that he is going to medical school or whatever (or at least he was before), but just as in this lady’s case, he shouldn’t be selling the parts if he can’t supply them, at least until he finishes school and has more time. And again, that is for the stuff that is readily available, I still understand his situation on the rare stuff and I support him on that. As far as I’ve seen, Ramy has come through on everything he has sold, even the rare stuff, and that’s why I still consider him a stand-up guy. It may take a while, but at least he comes through…I can’t say the same so far for this lady. However, if and when I finally get my seats (now it’s supposed to be tomorrow after work), I will post pics and give her props for a job well done (if that’s the case), but I will not be recommending her to any of my friends here in the area.

Hmmm, I think maybe you should figure out what a forum is and what it's used for before you go spouting off like this. Believe it or not, I’m not the first one to complain about getting screwed over. And if you don’t like what you’re reading, feel free to leave this thread, I’m not keeping you here, nor is anyone else. Again I say, it’s hilarious that you have even less of an idea than I do about her finances, yet you and a couple others have brought it up like you know her personally. And like I said before, you have no idea how NOT-fragile this particular 80 year old is. Do you really think she could be doing this job and hauling these seats around if she was that frail?

Furthermore, I’m not going to lie to this lady just to get my seats finished faster, I shouldn’t have to. I see where you’re coming from though.

Rich, this looks strangely familiar LOL.

How true, haha.

She was the one that told me she was 80 IIRC, so I have no reason not to believe that. However, like I’ve said time and time again, she does get around like she’s 50 or 60, I just can’t get it through these guy’s thick skulls.

The rest of what you said, is correct and it's exactly what I’m getting at.



UPDATE: She left me a voicemail last night saying she only had one little thing to do to the seats and it would only take her about 5 minutes…and to come “tomorrow night” to get them, and that she was going to take $50 off the price. I thought that was very nice of her. She also said that she hadn’t actually had the seats for 2 months, and the rest was garbled so I couldn’t hear what she said after that.

She called me a bit later and told me the same things she had said in the VM, except she wanted me to pick them up WEDNESDAY now. So within an hour or so, the day moved back yet again. But she did explain that they have to do inventory at the store after she gets off work tonight so I understood that. I also thanked her very much for the discount.

I did tell her she has had the seats for over 2 months now because I dropped them off on Nov 7th, and she said “well, I had to finish the other seats first” and I realized what she was trying to say. OK, so a month and a half if you consider that, still not great, but better. But until I get the seats back from her, it’s hard telling when I will actually get them back. It could be 3 months from now, maybe a year, but I guess that’s what you guys think I should do huh? Haha, whatever.

I also asked her if she started the shift/ebrake boots yet and she said no.

Backstory about that: Before I gave her the boots, I asked her if she needed to take them apart to get the pattern (I just wanted some out of the other material and thread to match, and to be able to reuse these if needed), and she said she could get the pattern without taking them apart. A while later she told me she still needed to take them apart to put the new material on top and sew it all back together. I reminded her that I needed the originals back in the condition I gave them to her and she said she would just double up the material.

Last night when I asked her if she had them done yet, she said no, and that she still had to take them apart so she could put the material on and that it would take as long as it’s taken to do the seats. REALLY?! I again reminded her I wanted the originals back in shape so I could use them, and she said she’d just use vinyl for the backing.

So I guess memory is her weakness, because it sure as hell isn’t frailty lol.

 

I completely understand your point of view. Don't worry with these blowhards claiming because someone is old they shouldn't be held accountable when they commit to do something. I guess when I get old I should be allowed to rob the **** out of banks. After all I'd be old, and more importantly, I would have major bills to pay...

 

What I'm saying there is you have to know who you're dealing with. If I run into a random guy who says he can rebuild my engine for 400 bucks, I don't know this guy but it's a great deal, however risk is greater than reward. If a buddy of mine did it and it went well, the risk goes down some, but I'm still dealing with a random dude who isn't a shop and doesn't own a business. If the guy owns a business, the risk goes down again but reward will likely go down as it will cost more.

You entered into a very risky situation, a random older woman who is doing this on the side. I'm not trying to insult you, you wanted to save money and you saw she did a quality job. But sometimes you just get burned when you're not dealing with a proven commodity, I know I've done it.

 

I ALMOST made the same mistake...

When it came time to do the seats in my FD, I thought long and hard, checked out some reupholster jobs, and decided that it'd be easier and cheaper to find a clean set of used OEM seats. Dealing with headaches like this story, or wrestling with them yourself only to have the seats look noticeably different from a new OEM seat is just too much of an ordeal with not enough pay-off.

I bought a set out of a 35k mile FD for 350 bucks (thanks Farkle). The leather's soft, and they still even smell new. IMO, unless you know someone in the business, the job of recovering your seats is too easy to screw up...especially if you're stitching together the covers out of raw material.

 

Exactly lol.

Well I just went off of how my buddy's seats came out and decided for the price it was worth the risk. Little did I know the price would go up (which I understand as long as she's actually buying the stuff she needs for our seats) and it would take MUCH longer than I expected haha.

Well I ended up getting these seats from FORTUNEBV because they were black (I swapped my interior from tan to black) and because the foam on the driver's seat was in MUCH better shape than on my original one. So I decided to just have these seats redone how I wanted. I actually explained to her how bad my original seat is and she said she could still fix it. So originally I planned on getting a set of skins and taking those seats to her too, or just having her do those from scratch too, but I think I'll take them somewhere else now haha.

She did do a great job on my friend's seats though, so I hope she does the same on mine.

 

Well well well, I'm not sure what I expected.

I was supposed to pick them up today after work, but I was pretty sure I wouldn't for some reason. She left me a voicemail today while I was at work telling me that she had a doctor's appt tonight and forgot about it, and she had been putting it off for a while now. She asked me what time I wanted to pick up the seats tomorrow. Tomorrow you say? It's starting to sound like a broken record.

I called her back and she told me the same stuff, and asked me when I could pick them up tomorrow. I said well I can pick them up tonight. She said she wasn't going to be home tonight (I guess she's spending the night at the doctor's office that isn't even open at night in the first place, at least I've never heard of a doctor's office open 24 hours a day). I asked her when I would ever get my seats back, how many times she was going to keep pushing it back because we're up to at least 7 times now. She said she wasn't doing that, I told her she was full of it, and that she had done it 4 times in the last 4 days, even twice on Monday night. I asked her if I could pick them up 3 months from now. I said I was coming to pick them up tonight. She said she wasn't going to give them back to me until they're finished, so I told her I would be calling the cops to go with me to pick them up because she is holding my property. She said well if you want them back that bad, I'll go home and undo all the work I've done and give them back to you in pieces. Really? So you're going to take apart my seats even though I've paid you all that money? You haven't paid me all the money! Why the hell would I? She went on about how she's 75 years old (yeah, not 80 like she told me before, not that there's much difference and not like I'd trust a thing she says anymore anyway), and about how she doesn't have anyone to help her or anyone to talk to about all the problems she's been having. Funny, because I seem to remember a boyfriend that is much younger, and not only that, her son works right there in town too. She went through the list of problems...from health to family problems, making excuses as to why it's not done yet. What she DIDN'T say was how any of that was MY problem, aside from showing me with the timeliness of getting the seats finished.

She told me on the VM that she was going to be gone for her doctor's appt before 430pm. Calling her bluff, I drove by her house around 5pm. Lo and behold, her car was there AND the door was open! So I drove down the street to the police station and talked to an officer. I explained the situation to him and he said he would be able to go with me to pick my seats up, but if she claims they are hers we'll have another problem. I told him I had at least 3 people that had gone with me to her place, so they know the situation.

I had also called Frank to tell see if he wanted to pick up his seats, and I called Victor to tell him about it. He called her and she told him her sob story too. He called me back and said he would go with me tomorrow at 3pm (the NEW time for me to pick up the seats...no wait, the new time for her to give me a BS reason to not pick them up), and he said well, we'll see if she has 2 or 3 days of work left... I said oh no no no, we're picking them up tomorrow regardless, with or without police help. He said OK, I'm good with that.

I find it odd that she only had 5 minutes of work to do, yet she pushed it back yet ANOTHER day. I have a feeling she hasn't done **** to my seats. And if she has done some work but she pulls them all apart and they're not usable when I pick them up, especially when I gave them to her in usable condtion, I don't think I need to say what I'l want to do.

So we'll see what happens. There is your sweet, innocent old lady gentlemen! LOL

 

Told you she wasn't 80 =P

 

Sounds like she should be committed.

 

OK Shaman, you were right...technically HAHA.

Well, maybe not committed, but she should never be trusted by ANYONE ever again. She apparently has a lying problem.

So I went over there today, and STILL didn't get the seats. I did get to see them though, and they look pretty good. The stitching kinda sucks actually, but it's so hard to see the blue thread you can't tell unless you're right up on it. She claims there is only 2 more hours of work and she said she's off work tomorrow and gave me her word they will be ready tomorrow after noon, whatever her word is worth anyway.

Victor (Morris), my friend that recommended her, went with me today (he talked to her yesterday while I was talking to the police) and he gave her an earful about putting his name through the mud by pulling this crap, and he told her she should have just told us the truth about how long it was going to take instead of stringing us along.

From what I can tell there really is only a couple hours work left though. The bases of both seats are finished aside from attaching a couple more clips on one, and the centers need to be put into the leans and those need to be clipped down. I think that's it. Oh, other than the ebrake and shift boots still need to be completed I believe. Hopefully I can post pics tomorrow, but for some reason I'm not counting on it haha.

I got a look at the "progress" made on my buddy's seats too. Let's just say there is a snowball's chance in hell he will get his seats back by the promised date of next Monday. One seat hasn't even been taken apart yet, even though she told him she had them both apart. I don't even think she has the patterns cut out yet, but I could be wrong about that. I'm guessing she will be AT LEAST another month on his.