Northwest Seat Covers® - OEM™ 1st Row Black Custom Seat Covers

Care & Cleaning
Polyester with laminated polyurethane (PU) foam and scrim backing. Machine wash with an HE liquid detergent in warm water and on gentle cycle. The textile manufacturers recommend hang drying or fluff drying.

Do not tumble dry on any warm temperature settings because the higher temperatures will reduce the moisture of the open cell foam walls, causing them to collapse and turn to foam dust over time. This is true for any foam backed set of covers.

OE Series of fabrics are made of a polyester knit construction. The fabric is designed to resist staining but, if you want to add additional protection then treat your seat covers with Scotchgard before installing them. This is the same type of treatment your factory seats receive before picking up your new vehicle from the dealership.

Installation
Headrest and Latch Holes
In many models, headrest holes, power holes and/or latch holes are not cut. This is due to past trouble with properly aligning the covers once the holes were cut. In these cases, it was deemed better to cut the holes once the cover is properly aligned and installed. To make these holes, simply install the cover, then cut a small "X" cut over the area where the hole needs to be. Then, in the case of a latch hole, lift the cover up and slide the latch through the hole. This process ensures that the holes are placed in correct spot every time.

The OEM Series™ of fabrics are soft to the touch and comfortable to sit on. Made of genuine automotive grade fabrics, they blend discreetly with your vehicle's current interior. They also provide exceptional seating protection with the benefits of easy washing and drying. If you want a factory style look and performance then choose the OEM Series™ cloth seat covers.

Choosing Your Fabric

What is the best fabric for seat covers?
From the start, NW committed themselves to providing customers with the highest quality selection of fabrics. Since they were going to be manufacturing seat covers for cars and trucks, it just seemed like a natural fit to use genuine automotive fabrics.

High abrasion is probably the most important feature for seating fabrics. Vehicle seats are subject to a fair amount of wear. Imagine how many times you get in and out of a vehicle everyday. Think about the amount of time you spend sitting on the seats, not to mention the amount of shifting around you do. Now multiply that by 365 days and the number of years and miles you'll be driving. This is why the durability of fabrics is at the top of list.

Durability
When NW first consider a fabric they always look at the Wyzenbeek test results.
This is also known as the double rub test. This is a durability test that was developed by 20th century inventor Andrew Wyzenbeek. A piece of automotive fabric is placed on top of a half-cylinder covered in a #8 cotton duck fabric. The half-cylinder then rocks back and forth simulating, in this case, the action of someone sliding into his car seat and sliding out. This is one double rub.

UV Protection
The second factor you look at is UV light protection. After many test samples, NW decided to include a grade 3.5 UV light protective coating (200 hrs). The fabric will still fade over time but, at a much slower rate. Grade 1 coatings leave fabric feeling very natural but, with almost no protection, the color black would turn to brown in one year. Grade 5 coating does a very good job for protection but, makes the fabric quite stiff. Outdoor furniture is often receive grade 4.0 - 5.0 coatings.

Flammability & Safety
The third consideration is flammability. NW fabrics are FR coating and depending on the style of fabric they'll pass either the FMVSS302 (Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard) or CPAI 84 Sections 5 and 6.

Waterproof
The fourth aspect NW take into consideration is a fabric's ability to provide waterproof protection. Most of fabrics offer high water repellency or are waterproof. Just as with outerwear, at some point due to normal use, the effectiveness of a fabric's ability to repel water will diminish. You can restore the fabric by either spraying Scotchgard on O.E fabrics or a DWR (Durable Water Repellant) on any of others.

HD Designs
Technology has really changed what NW can do with fabrics. A good example of that is the family of camouflage fabrics NW offer. Realtree, Mossy Oak, and Fishouflage all require as many as 10 screens to produce the camo seat cover patterns you all love. NW fabrics really shine in HD because of the quality of the image when using heat transfer paper and the fact that NW use durable 600 denier polyester fabrics.