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I received a roll of orange leather today from Tokyo, Japan but unfortunately it is the wrong shade of orange. So hopefully my upholstery shop can get the correct leather color. This is just a small setback as it can be installed anytime after the interior installation. Had appointment for the interior installation this Tuesday but it snowed changed to today but it snowed this morning. Rain all next week(I don’t drive it in the rain) so hopefully sometime in March it will get installed.
It's April. We are waiting for pictures of the seat covers installed...
lol
Picking it up today. I was going to post pictures soon after.
I was hoping to pick it up yesterday but due to the air bags and seat sensor it is becoming a problem. RHD(Japanese)seat covers are different than LHD(USA) and not a simple swap.
I was hoping to pick it up yesterday but due to the air bags and seat sensor it is becoming a problem. RHD(Japanese)seat covers are different than LHD(USA) and not a simple swap.
You know what, that makes perfect sense since the airbags would then be on the opposite sides...etc. Do you have pictures that you can share or the person installing it snapping pictures as they go? This would be great information if anyone else were to do something like this.
You gonna be the only on in the USA that has this interior! My fingers are truly crossed for you. I really want this to work out.
My goal is to be the first person in the USA to have power folding mirrors on the face lifted rcf...lol
I was hoping to pick it up yesterday but due to the air bags and seat sensor it is becoming a problem. RHD(Japanese)seat covers are different than LHD(USA) and not a simple swap.
so my RCF is still at Lexus, now for about a week. The front seat bottoms, like the front seat backs, are injected with foam so they(the seat covers) are not removable. Instead of eating 15k in interior parts that I cannot return, it has been decided to install everything except for the front seat bottoms. That is only a loss of 3k. I have not been to the dealership since I dropped it off last Thursday morning. It was either that or just install the 1/4 trim panels. I plan to get my upholstery shop(I’ve known the owner since 1977) and have him perform a miracle for me using the Japanese front seat covers and put them on the USA cushion assembly. I haven’t taken the cluster bezel pad to him yet so I will have it done at the same time. Would have been a lot cheaper to sell my RCF and buy a 2022 LC500 with orange interior, but I have a 2018 LC500 and I enjoy driving my RCF to the LC. So I will continue to dump more money into the RCF until it is to my liking.
so my RCF is still at Lexus, now for about a week. The front seat bottoms, like the front seat backs, are injected with foam so they(the seat covers) are not removable. Instead of eating 15k in interior parts that I cannot return, it has been decided to install everything except for the front seat bottoms. That is only a loss of 3k. I have not been to the dealership since I dropped it off last Thursday morning. It was either that or just install the 1/4 trim panels. I plan to get my upholstery shop(I’ve known the owner since 1977) and have him perform a miracle for me using the Japanese front seat covers and put them on the USA cushion assembly. I haven’t taken the cluster bezel pad to him yet so I will have it done at the same time. Would have been a lot cheaper to sell my RCF and buy a 2022 LC500 with orange interior, but I have a 2018 LC500 and I enjoy driving my RCF to the LC. So I will continue to dump more money into the RCF until it is to my liking.
Ah!, damn! But there is still light at the tunnel I think. Upholsters can do some AMAZING work. I have no doubt that he'll be able to get the seat bottoms to work. Might need some alterations but that's what his job is ;-)
It's only money.... we can't take any of this **** with us, and the older I get the more I am realizing that if something makes you happy. DO IT. Don't go crazy and blow all your money in a day but I've seen too many people save and save and not really live... then they die, and I just think what was the point of saving all that money that you didn't even get to use....I think you are doing good. You are going to have a 1 of 1 orange RCF in the entire United States. That to me is cooler than buying a 2020 LC500 and it's not unique.
I'm trying to source power folding mirrors for the face lifted RCF. I would love to be the only one in the USA to have power folding mirrors... My tentacles are reaching out to people I work with that are in other countries to see if they can make a couple trips to the Lexus dealer and get part numbers and or be the proxy to make this happen. it's not gonna be cheap but it's the uniqueness of it.
Ah!, damn! But there is still light at the tunnel I think. Upholsters can do some AMAZING work. I have no doubt that he'll be able to get the seat bottoms to work. Might need some alterations but that's what his job is ;-)
It's only money.... we can't take any of this **** with us, and the older I get the more I am realizing that if something makes you happy. DO IT. Don't go crazy and blow all your money in a day but I've seen too many people save and save and not really live... then they die, and I just think what was the point of saving all that money that you didn't even get to use....I think you are doing good. You are going to have a 1 of 1 orange RCF in the entire United States. That to me is cooler than buying a 2020 LC500 and it's not unique.
I'm trying to source power folding mirrors for the face lifted RCF. I would love to be the only one in the USA to have power folding mirrors... My tentacles are reaching out to people I work with that are in other countries to see if they can make a couple trips to the Lexus dealer and get part numbers and or be the proxy to make this happen. it's not gonna be cheap but it's the uniqueness of it.
You almost there! Keep going!
-Nigel
Nigel-You actually have been an inspiration for my Interior project. Thank You!
Nigel-You actually have been an inspiration for my Interior project. Thank You!
You got it! Most people tend to stop right before the magic is about to happen. You are pretty much there! Most people don't get it and just figure you are wasting money, so they'll try and sway you, ignore those peeps...they everywhere..lol
Who knows your upholsterer might actually say "we can't do this, but we can add some alcantara, here and there and do it this way", and boom... now you got something even cooler than what Lexus put out and even more rare.
Please try and get pictures :-) Or have the dealer send you progress pictures...hahaha. Not sure how good your dealer is. I am guessing you trust their work considering they are doing your seats. I would never do such a thing here but, sometimes the folks at dealers just look at putting legos together so when they don't fit, they just say it doesn't work...etc. I think your upholsterer is going to be a good set of second eyes and see things much differently than the dealer looking to just bolt items in... I worked on many projects before where people couldn't see past something, then it goes to an engineer, who looks at it for a little bit then says, yep we can 100% do this. Then executes it and makes it happen.
I picked up my RCF today. It’s still not done, missing front seat back bezels. Taking the cluster bezel pads to upholstery shop next week. Still working on the front seat bottoms. Was looking at the 2019 10th Anniversary F RCF’s interior and if you can see, only the front seats got the special black and blue seat covers and the back seats were just black. 2019 Special Edition RCF interior
Your's looks better in my opinion! I never understood why Lexus did that with the limited editions... They do the front seats but leave the back seats completely black. It's like they forgot to finish the look. ESPECIALLY when they changed the steering wheel and air bag cover (which if I'm honest looks tacky) to the same limited color. This would have looked much nicer keeping it black and simply extending the color to the rear seats. Even if it was just how they did the orange with a single stripe it would have at least looked like someone didn't forget to do their job...
The orange looks fantastic to me! And it doesn't look bad with the OEM non orange bottom seats BUT the nice thing is that they are not a large piece. It almost looks like (will take some time), but your upholsterer would be able to take the orange leather and separate what you have and sew it in place of the black, and then also do the same stitching on the bottom seat covers to match the tops (the pattern). So if nothing else they might be "dissecting " the new JDM seat bottoms and transplanting pieces of it onto the USDM seat covers....
You should really look into getting a leather wrapped air bag cover and keeping it black leather but doing a matching orange double stitch. Would really make it pop! That was one thing I really liked when I did my interior and swapped the air bag covers. It just looks so much more polished and you are staring at it every time you drive.
Very happy you are this far!!
Appreciate the pictures, please keep us updated!
04-01-22, 08:28 AM
Major Problems With Front Seats
