Adding Leather Seats to a 2000 Mustang Convertible

We bought our 2000 Mustang convertible on a whim three years ago, and it's been a great little car every since. A previous (crazy) owner tricked it out with all the Cobra upgrades, including the suspension and alloy wheels, and it's been mechanically perfect. We store it all winter, and it's never seen snow or salt -- and the kids just love driving around with the top down all summer.

One thing that's always bothered me is the cloth seats, which were slightly stained when we got the car. Apparently the P.O. had left the top down in the rain, and the seats got saturated.

We tried everything known to man to get those stains out -- no dice. So, every time I've driven the thing, those stains on the passenger seat have been staring me in the face, bugging me every time...

So, I at last endeavored to find leather seats for our little 'Stang. I found them last week on Ebay (of course!) being sold by a national used auto parts chain called A-Reliable Auto Parts, which posts under the corporate title of "LKQ". The seats were out of a wrecked 2002 convertible, were at their Blue Island, IL, site -- and the price was just $175, which I thought was a real bargain.

(See:

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Thinking I was dealing with the traditional junk yard, via email I offered to buy one of the guys lunch if he'd meet me at a nearby airport with the seats. (I was planning to fly over from Iowa to pick them up in our light plane.) Needless to say, I had NO idea who or what I was dealing with, because they practically laughed at the idea, responding that "we're a big company and can't do that..." Oh, well...

Plan B was to drive over and pick 'em up in our Mustang, and swap the seats out right then and there. The morning we were to depart it was dumping a cold, steady rain, and I didn't know if we'd be able to work under cover, so we took the van instead -- which turned out to be a good choice. More on that later.

The drive took around 4 hours each way, and around $60 worth of gas -- so the logic behind saving the $100+ in shipping was probably faulty! Still, it was kinda nice to just kick back in our big Fod Econoline van and cruise -- it's our hotel's courtesy van, and usually doesn't run for more than 10 minutes at a time. Probably burned out a bunch of carbon deposits on the trip...

Once we got there, I couldn't believe it. This is NOT your father's junk yard! Everything is computerized, the yard and building is huge, organized, and clean, with a bank of computerized "tellers" who can find any and all parts simply by typing them into their database.

I gave 'em my Ebay receipt, and within minutes a guy brought the seats around to our van. Talk about service! I was very impressed, and if any of you guys are looking for a source for Mustang parts, call them!

Today I installed 'em, and quickly discovered a couple of minor problems.

1, The colors weren't what the photos on Ebay showed -- the seats are a light brown, rather than a dark brown -- but they look good anyway.

  1. The bolts holding the backs of the seat rails simply go through the frame, and stick out the bottom of the car. This means they are subject to rain and road hazards, and, as a result, were an absolute bear to remove. In fact, I couldn't get 'em out with my 1/4-inch drive socket wrench. Of course I didn't have the right sized socket for my

1/2 inch drive (when did Ford go metric?), so add that to the cost of "saving money by buying on Ebay"... :-)

Eventually, with liberal application of penetrating oil, and much grunting, groaning and swearing, the bolts -- and seats -- came out.

  1. The vertical portion of the back seat has two brackets that are supposed to attach to the frame with two bolts. The holes on my 2000 model do NOT line up with the brackets on the 2002 seats, despite being assured that the years were identical. Luckily, this doesn't seem to matter, since the bottom of the back seat snaps into place, and securely prevents the vertical part from moving.

In the end, it took $175 for the seats, $60 in gas, a full day of driving to get 'em, $5 for a 15 mm 1/2" drive socket, and then several hours of grunt work to get the leather into my 2000 convertible -- but it was worth it. They look great, feel great, smell great -- and at last I don't have to look at those stains!

-- Jay Honeck Iowa City, IA

2000 Mustang Convertible
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"Your Aviation Destination"
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Jay Honeck
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A-Reliable in Blue Island has always been reputible in my experience. They have a full service salvage yard, computerized as all modern ones are. They also have various speciality and self serve locations. I've been using their U-Pull-It yards for years and years. I haven't used the full service yard much, when I've asked for something it was usually a hard to find item and they didn't have it or they wanted too much so I waited for one to turn up in self-serve.

You had me scared there, at first I thought they had been sold out to LKQ given your post, but rather they are just a member yard still family owned as I read deeper into the LKQ site.

Their actual website is

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Only thing that annoys me is they still aren't puting the '94 mustangs in self-serve. Practically every car not a mustang and not something considerably more expensive new goes to self serve if over 10 years old.

I'll have to look for them on ebay now that I know they are putting bargin stuff up there.

Reply to
Brent P

One word of warning: A-Reliable tried to add on sales tax to their price AFTER I paid them with PayPal through Ebay, by sending me a separate bill. When I told them that was in violation of Ebay's policies, and was, in fact, a common form of fraud, they backed down.

They're good folks, but they've got bean-counters, just like everyone else. And not all the counters play straight.

-- Jay Honeck Iowa City, IA

2000 Mustang Convertible
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"Your Aviation Destination"
Reply to
Jay Honeck

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