Introduction

Are your car seats hopelessly stained or torn—or just plain ugly? Learn how to order and install replacement seat covers for both back and front seats.

Whether you fill your vehicle with construction materials, haul kids and grandkids around or just spill lots of coffee, you know how easy it is for factory seat covers to get grungy. If they’re beyond rescuing with an upholstery cleaner and you want to spruce up your vehicle’s interior, you have only three options: Pay a professional automotive upholsterer to reupholster your seats, buy used seats from a junkyard, or buy covers and handle the seat cover installation yourself.

The installation is similar across makes and models. The job takes about two hours for front and rear car seats. The only tools you’ll need are a wire coat hanger and some tape to fish the straps under plastic trim pieces (if equipped). Everything else is included with the seat covers.

How to Buy Seat Covers

Seat covers come in two styles: universal and custom-fit. You can buy universal seat covers right off the shelf at an auto parts store or order them online. Custom-fit seat covers must be ordered to fit your exact year, make, model and style.

They’re far more expensive than universal-fit seat covers, but they fit like a glove, stay put when you slide in and out, and are more comfortable. Plus, custom-fit seat covers include breakaway stitching so the airbag can deploy properly if your vehicle has side bolster airbags.

To get around the air bag issue and keep costs down, universal seat covers simply eliminate the fabric normally covering the seat air bags. Then, to reduce slipping, the manufacturers coat the underside of the fabric with an anti-skid rubber. That makes them a bit more uncomfortable to sit on for long periods. And they will inevitably slip out of place and wrinkle because they’re not an exact fit for your seats.

The most popular seat cover fabrics are officially licensed designer camouflage and sports patterns. Since the fabric designers get a royalty on every sale, you’ll pay more for those patterns. If you want to keep the cost down, skip the trendy camo and sports fabrics and choose a solid color; perhaps one that matches your car’s interior for a sleek look.

Buy custom-fit and universal seat covers from retail and online auto parts stores or directly from the manufacturer. If you order custom-fit seat covers, you’ll have the option of also ordering matching armrest and headrest covers, console covers, seat back storage and map pockets.

NOTE: We couldn’t show you the trim disconnect and seat cover attachment points with the seat still in the vehicle, so we bought a junkyard Subaru seat to show how everything fits together. You don’t have to remove the seats from the vehicle to install new seat covers. Since most seats are made the same way, these instructions will work with the majority of makes and models. However, if the seat cover manufacturers’ instructions differ from ours, follow theirs instead.