The Upholstery Forum

Where can you get OEM matching material for auto upholster. I have a few people asking me to do repairs now and I have no idea how to find matching color leather or for another example I have someone with a Dodge pick up truck with grey cloth interior, where would I be able to find matching cloth??

Thanks

These jobs are very easy to come by and very easy to loose money on. Be Careful! Customers dont understand how its not possible to find original material for their car. Most automotive material is produced for a limited time for the production year of the car and then discontinued. Its really easy to spend hours searching for OEM material only to come up empty handed. On top of that if you do find OEM material it will likely not color match because everything else has faded from sun light.

I always tell the customer that they will most likely have to make a compromise to a material that is similar or will have to pay a lot of money to find OEM material. Be very careful!

Also! Albrights auto originals site has a good selection of OEM materials.

I'd like to inquire further on this subject as I am new to the upolstery world myself. Say if for example is was reupholstering a 2000 Silverado pickup seat, would there be any information on the truck that would give me a upolstery code that I could use to give a vendor to find the factory material? TIA.

Even if you find the correct color it’s doubtful it will match as the chances of it coming from the same dye lot are lower than winning a lottery.

I take on this work and do a lot of repairs and with effort you can get close but as Rev Up states you will not ever get the same and John is truthful about the loss on repairs. I have done over 100 seats easy and a customer looking for a repair is not looking to spend a lot of $. I am fastest at this work than anything I do but it is Just a repair and I always hand it over as such.

@choptop0130 , go to allbright supply it may be the fastest way to match but beware what you order may not match.

I repaired a 2016 Dodge a few years ago, I thought that would be easy to get material for. I had a hard time finding the fabric. Just shows that even though it is a fairly new vehicle their may not be a surplus of matching material.

Yeah I agree, there almost always has to be a compromise in these situations other wise you will spend days searching for material that likely doesn't exit and if it does is really expensive.

If your stuck send me a picture I may have something you are looking for especially if it is from the 90's. I agree with all comments and find it miserable spending hours sourcing materials.

I repaired a dodge a few years ago with OEM I got real lucky it matched Pattern wise , customer was happy. I did order it through Albrights OEM you gonna pay for it 50.00 a yard .