Replace or Reupholster Seats?

Replace or Reupholster Boat Seats?

Jared 00:08
Look, I was talking to a guy the other day. And one of the questions he was asking yet some seats on his boat that were kind of damaged, right. And he was wondering whether it's better for him to replace those seats and buy a new one or try to repair those existing seats. I know that something that you just undertook a couple of years ago. What are your thoughts?

Luke 00:24
Yeah, so I think when you're doing that it's common to just kind of call it upholstery guy and be like, hey, my seats are ripped. Can you fix them? And a lot of times, they'll go yep, we can do this. They'll give you a consultation, whatever. Not a lot of times do you think about just totally replacing them and honestly, I went down that path, the traditional path I found an upholstery guy, you know, and good, reputable jobs. I just think that when you fix something on a boat, it doesn't always, especially with upholstery. It doesn't always last as long as the original. You see the same thing with carpet guys’ reed; you know their carpet on their basketball last 20 years. And then they redo it themselves or they have somebody redoing it in the last 5 years.

Jared 01:08
So was there a significant cost difference between the two?

Luke 01:11
Yeah what I went through and what I did is this guy quoted me out I believe it was like 500 bucks to fix myself. So that was a little bit of you know, some of the foam was exposed to the elements a little bit so we had to replace some of the foam that covered over with the vinyl that they use for boat seats so and in retrospect, I could have gotten a set of three brand new bass boat seats for about 100 bucks, maybe 150 bucks more than what I paid to just have mine re upholstered.

Jared 01:44
Which is nice. I mean, the nice thing for you is you have that option. I know Matt that on our side with boat Outfitters, that's not always the option you can't call Key West and get a brand new bow cushion or and so that might be for the dealer or what's what do you generally tell people I think that being able to buy a brand new one is really nice, but that's not enough.

Luke 02:05
The other thing too, it was an exact OEM replacement. I didn't call it try it and go hey, I need three new seats, right? I just went and you know my bad for doing this after the fact. We're doing a little bit of research. Well, this seat is this size and can fit exactly in the same spot and it's only four screws. And I could have taken my old seats out and put these right in there brand new, right you know,

Matt 02:31
And that's a good way to go. I mean, going back to the manufacturer, in some cases in some cases, right? Sometimes you're working on an old boat, you're restoring an old boat and you still need the upholstery, you might have only have the option of going to a custom upholstery shop right?

Jared 02:46
But we've got some out of the box seating, right we offer some out of the box seating on the site.

Matt 02:51
And I think that that's a really good option like what Luke was talking about. That's the way you decided to go with your bass boat. I mean, in my experience, we've had to replace the upholstery in our boat one time and we're probably coming up on it again here soon. And I'm kind of dreading the idea of having to go back to the manufacturer and say hey, I need a whole new round of upholstery right now backrest on the console, leaning post seat, backrest flip up seats in the back, I mean it adds up quick when you got to go.

Jared 03:22
For you are you going back to the manufacturer Everglades in that case in ordering seat, or are you going to a local upholstery shop? How would you guys handled in the past?

Matt 03:30
So in the past, we were lucky enough that they started to fail early and they covered some of the replacement costs for us, which made sense for us to go back to Everglades at that time the boat was still relatively new. At this point, we're probably going to we might consider looking at an upholstery. But what I find is the foam starts to degrade, right? That's part of the challenge and the reason why they don't last as long. You can go to a real upholster, and they'll recover it for you, but the foam is still the same foam that's 15 years old at this point.

Luke 04:02
And which is another thing don't wait if you have a crack or you have a hole in your in your seat, get it fixed as soon as possible because there's when it gets wet in there, that phone just starts kind of compressed, get nasty and it's like…

Jared 04:15
And you've got to think a lot of these upholstery guys back to your point when he replaced that phone for you. These local upholstery guys are probably on sourcing and high end foam that may be out in the marine space. They're probably buying a run of the mill what they can get their hands on. You think that in an OEM they're able to really dial in from their suppliers what is going to last and I can see that being a thing. I've got this good for a car but not fully exposed and that can start to deteriorate over the years as well.