Does anyone have a pattern for the 2011 Xb seats, for seat covers? My wife offered to make me some seat covers, but wondered if there was a pattern floating around.

I have searched the net, but I wasn't able to find anything.

p.s. Sorry for all the threads, I have so many questions and so little knowledge right now.

 

I don't know of anyone with a definitive pattern. I'd opt to create my own.

The Clazzio seat covers are very reasonably priced. But custom is always cooler.

 

You're probably going to have to take the covers off the seat un-stich them and cut out the new material using the originals as the template.

 

Don't forget the tear-out panels for the seat mounted airbags!

 

And don't forget to match the cloth piece on the doors with the new fabric!

 

Can anyone recommend some seat covers that would fit snugly on the 2011 seats, but won't run me an arm and a leg? I picked up a set from Walmart, but they do not fit snugly. I need to mess around with them some more tonight and see if I can remedy that.

 

Well, I was just hoping to find a few cheaper ones that at least weren't ultra loose that I could use until my wife comes up with a pattern for new ones. We just need to draw up the seats, take all the measurements, and instead of sewing it all together we need to use staples while were fixing them.

If we can come up with a good pattern, I will post it for everyone else to use :-)

 

Since your wife is talented on a sewing machine, I'd say let her take the lead on making the covers; just be there to hold the pattern paper in place as she stitches the needles into place. I would seriously NOT USE any seat cover that does not have the tear-out panel for the seat airbags. I'm not using any seat covers at the moment until I get new covers from Wet Okole (yeah, it's an arm and a leg). I did however spray ScotchGard on the seats in the meantime and vacuum them monthly. I figure, I paid for the seats, I'm gonna use them!

And thanks in advance for any pattern your wife makes!

 

Also, this may be a stupid question, but everyone keeps mentioning seat airbags. What exactly do those do, and where in the seat are they located? What would happen if fabric would cover them up??

 

It's actually a very good question, Acid. In a side impact accident (getting T-Boned), these pop out from the side of the seat and cushion the impact. They are near the middle the overall seat ht. They are part of the series of airbags in the xB, along with the common front airbags and the curtain airbags (the ones above the door). In a side impact accident, the bags break through special rip-panels in the seat, allowing full inflation. If the seat covers don't have a slit or breakaway panel, the bags don't deploy, raising the risk of serious injury.

All these airbags are what gives the xB a very high accident safety rating by the Feds and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (the group that makes those great slo-mo crash test videos).

 

Well, we have a back pattern slightly worked out. The cover fits on, and it fits on decently well. Need to work it out so that it fits more snugly, and it will define the headrests better. It has also been like 110 damn degrees here lately, which makes working out in the car something we just aren't doing.

Hopefully we can refine the backseat in the next 2 weeks and get started on the front seat patterns after that. Just wanted to give everyone an update, and I hope this all actually works.

 

Did you ever come up with a template or measurements for the xB?