Citroen XM Forum

Does anyone have grey Alcantara seats for sale? Need a nice condition rear to repair my fronts with. Impossible to get correct fabric match with backing.

Ian

I have a set of door cards. Not sure if they are of use to you

Thank you for the offer, but the panels are not large enough on the door cards plus they have stitched lines in which would not fit in with the seat panels. I have the covers stripped off the seats ready for when I can find suitable material. I'm going to try trawling the local car dismantlers to see if any other manufacturers used that shade of grey Alcantara. I have discovered that the quality used for seats and that used for panels and headlinings etc are different, which also may be a problem with using door cards. Many thanks for your reply.

Ian

Can't you buy suitable grade material from a supplier?
I believe the colour is "steel".

Unless you only intend to use the car twice a year, I would look for a more durable material, such as suede.

Or do a complete upgrade to full leather..

I have fitted a full set of black leather from a series one I bought off Paul in Wales. Hope his health is on the mend now he's been diagnosed he was in a lot of pain when I met him earlier this year. The door cards I've left as Alcantara as series one are slightly different.
Colour matching automotive fabrics is a nightmare. Monitors never show the correct shade/colour.
Alcantara in the Exclusive looks very desirable and is very comfortable. I've used my XM as a daily driver for 5 years and the fabric is worn out in the front. Not bad I suppose for a 23 year old car. The leather looks good but it's not what the car came out the factory with and I like the look.
Alcantara is also very expensive and so far I've not been able to get a match in "seat " quality genuine fabric. What I need is the Italian factory colour code for the fabric as used by Citroen in the nineties. Then I can start to track down a supplier with the right colour and scrim backed cloth.
The official supplier in UK only keeps 4 colours in the seat quality (Boyriven). Martrim has a closer colour match but only in headlining / dash quality, which has no scrim backing. Most of the stuff on e Ebay is cheap copy "Style" Alcantara.
In a strange way I see it as "de speccing" the car. I've gone to a fair bit of expense over the years to keep the car looking and driving as it should. I miss the 60 40 split rear seat, very useful. The pretension seatbelts are also not fitted to the series one seats. It's little things I suppose....
I'm in no hurry I'll sit and wait until someone scraps an Exclusive with Half Leather Alcantara trim and hopefully get the rear seats off them. I also need a couple of the 6mm black bolt covers from the boot area look about the size of a 2p piece

Hi XMnation

The Alcantara repair has long been a problem as it tended to wear through on the door side of the drivers seat back.
That material is not very strong and with the seat moved forward for short legs it takes a lot of wear.
Obtaining rear spare seats will not solve your problem as the Alcantara panel sizes are all smaller than the front seat ones.
The only fix is a good condition passenger front seat cover which is a perfect fit for a drivers seat.

I have some spare seats and covers somewhere in the heaps kept from my first repair attempt.
That used a passenger cover moved onto a drivers seat.
It was done some years ago and the replacement is already in trouble again.

I am keeping the seat spares with the intent to recover them.
It is likely that I will use leather panels for that but keeping the original panel shape and two colour.
In the search for suitable panel material I bought a few skins of leather.
I had to shift them around where they are stored recently.
One skin was light grey.
The interesting bit was not the finished smooth side but the reverse where the surface looked very similar to that of Alcantara.
At the time I just got the shifting finished, I had never thought of using the leather the wrong way round.
I will go back and check how good a match it really is.

John

Just been up in the roof to do that check.
There were 3 colour sample skins, blue, green and light grey.
All had an Alcantara type surface finish on the back.
The blue one was both the wrong colour and too variable.
The others had a consistent colour and finish.
The grey was far too light for a match.
The dark green one was actually a much closer match than I expected.
Still not close enough to use though.
Then I turned one side of the Alcantara cover inside out.
That compared the reverse of the grey leather of the seat with the Alcantara section of the cover.
Both the colour and surface finish match were much closer than I expected.
So much so that I think it would be worth trying.
Perhaps that is how the factory trimmer actually produced the prototype seats.

The grey leather sections from any spare seat would supply large enough pieces.
If acceptable there are plenty of worn seats with good leather.

John

Quite interesting. I'll have a look at the leather on the door cards to see what you mean.
Alcantara was always sold as a form of superior man made suede so it must be similar to the real thing. What I can never get my head around is the fact it's about the only artificial material that is loads more expensive than the material it is supposed to replace. I must admit I'm getting used to the black leather interior, however the door cards were from a series 1 so I never finalised all the the interior into leather. The door cards are still Alcantara though strangely the edges are black leatherette and match the interior quite well.
I keep searching there is a site in Germany seems to have every colour Alcantara going but at £130 a metre I'm reluctant to buy.
I'm still hopeful a trawl of our huge salvage company in Carlisle will come up with something from another car maker. Rover and MG look a possibility and right sort of era too.
On a side note after years of mediocre radio reception from my Citroen OE radio it dawned on me that something was wrong with the aerial whip. It always looked fine but I noticed by chance it isn't as long as ones on other XMs in photos. Turned out it must have been replaced with a different type and luckily Citroen still show stock £14 + VAT. Would have been cheaper but the Stores woman who I used to deal with has left so I'll have to try and work up a new relationship with the bloke who's taken over. It may just be 10% but it all adds up over the years. Of course Citroen seem to have all but disowned the XM in terms of support now unlike Jaguar who have a classic website for parts you order online and collect from the dealer. No one ever said it was easy owning a XM but they do get under your skin.
Anyway haven't had the radio off since I fitted the new aerial. Looks boss too. I replaced my old speakers with Pioneer that sit behind original grills a really worthwhile upgrade.

I've given up waiting to find matching Alcantara for the front seats of my Exclusive and scrapped the seats as I now have a Black leather interior.

However I've stripped the rear seats of their covers and put them aside in case someone with a nice grey half leather and Alcantara needs these virtually unmarked ones to give to an upholsterer to repair the fronts.

I've meaure the fronts and rears and there is enough to replace worn front seat panels.

The covers are off the seats and would be easy to post if anyone wants them.

It would need to be a car trimmer because of the need to have a decent walking foot sewing machine and the skills to strip and rebuild the seats.

Colour match would be perfect and they'd be undistinguisable from nearly new when done.

Also the leather and matching vinyl is perfect for replacing worn/damaged bolsters.

Message me if interested.

Ian