Anyone know a good, inexpensive trimmer in Sydney - north?

[brad]

I think you've got to the point where you just have to do the hard yards & make lots of phone calls.

Keep an eye on the forums (not just this one), ebay & gumtree for an interior. It's a DIY job and you don't need a mech to do it but you do need a triple square bit to get the seats out..

Ring a few more dealers. You'll need to speak to the sales people as they are the ones that organise aftermarket leather interiors for new cars.
Keep in mind that factory leather, which is only leather faces & pleather/vinyl sides is a ~$1800 (??) option so a bespoke solution is naturally going to be more expensive (and much better quality leather).

As often happens, sometimes it's cheaper to buy the better car in the first place rather than trying to upgrade a basic model.

[squareznboxez]

For anyone else interested, i recently got my E36's roof re-lined by Bob's Upholstery in Blacktown, did a great job, one-man band so no apprentices etc, restores all sorts of cars (muscle, euro, jap)

Just make sure you inquire about which type of lining you want as i didn't and got a sorta funny material which matched my carpet more than my original headliner

Bob's Auto Upholstery
Motor Body Trimmers - Blacktown, NSW
7/ 5 Steel St, Blacktown NSW 2148
Phone
(02) 9671 3608

[aussietanker]

I think you've got to the point where you just have to do the hard yards & make lots of phone calls.

Keep an eye on the forums (not just this one), ebay & gumtree for an interior. It's a DIY job and you don't need a mech to do it but you do need a triple square bit to get the seats out..

Ring a few more dealers. You'll need to speak to the sales people as they are the ones that organise aftermarket leather interiors for new cars.
Keep in mind that factory leather, which is only leather faces & pleather/vinyl sides is a ~$1800 (??) option so a bespoke solution is naturally going to be more expensive (and much better quality leather).

As often happens, sometimes it's cheaper to buy the better car in the first place rather than trying to upgrade a basic model.

Thanks Brad ... didn't even think of gumtree so that's a great tip .... sorry, three final questions (hopefully!)

1. does anyone know if the seats (both front and rear) are hard to get out or are they pretty straight forward? ... do the yards normally require you to remove stuff of a car being wrecked or will they usually do it for you for a fee?

2. can anyone advise what year seats i need to buy to fit into my 1 week old 2014 golf .. will only 2014 seats fit or can i go back a few years?

3. and finally, aside from a set of triple square bit thingies, are there any other tools that i would need to do the job (might take a mate that's a bit more "mechanically minded" than me

yes, would have liked to have got the better model with the seats that i wanted but it was about $6K more than this one ... and the only things that i really wanted were the seats and the satnav ... dealer told me that i could buy an after market satnav for this model for about $500 and get it fitted for about $100 ... foolishly i believed him, but didn't check it out for myself and now know better

i had decided to put a full leather interior into the car (which i did on my last car at a cost of $2K for a suzuki swift) but since buying my 90TSI and really enjoying it so much i have decided that my next car will be either a golf GTI or an R model at the end of my lease in 3 years ... so i am trying not to put excessive $$ into a car that i know that i am going to trade in 3 years ...my suzuki cost me about $18K from memory and had $13K of optional extras in it ... but it was a great car and i had great fun in it for about 7 years so i considered the $$ spent on it "worth it" .. i have decided that getting an interior from a Golf that is being wrecked is probably the best option for me as from my initial inquiries i THINK that i can get the cost of a new interior down to less that $1K

all the advise is appreciated ... at least i have a very clear idea of where to focus my energy and search now