Well, I've never really thought about the colour of our child seats before...

But assuming I do buy the RR I've arranged to inspect and collect on Saturday from the franchised dealer (13 plate), I'll have a conundrum: how best to accommodate two child seats in the rear and make them look "ok", especially when the kids aren't in there and they're just empty seats!

The interior is Almond/Espresso with Almond seats so it's a touch darker than ivory (which was part of the reason for thinking it might be a good colour!)

Does anybody have any experience for a reasonable match on colour - or at least something that doesn't look quite as incongruous as sticking a black car seat in there?

For our eldest, I was actually thinking something a bit contrasting like this, although it is a bit too dark:

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Its certainly NOT daft if it bothers you sir... One thing i will add is, the lighter the car seat, the dirtier it will look quicker!

That's a very good point Craig

And probably a good reason why child seats tend to come in dark colours... doh!

Annoyingly (because it's definitely light and therefore prone to getting very mucky), I've found what looks to me the perfect match and even as an adult I think it looks a fab seat:

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It would matter to me

I would buy the best car seat - the one that I wanted, regardless of colour - then buy a RR seat skin from eBay in the exact colour I wanted, take it all to a re-trimmer and have it done properly - something like this

When my kids were of car seat age, this is what I had - Fortunately I got a good colour match with the best seat I could find - but for the FF, I would be having a bespoke cover made

Thanks for that Alistair - that's an interesting idea, having it recovered with "proper" material to match the almond. Only downside of that of course is the cost! I'm not sure we're supposed to talk about such things given the cost of the cars themselves, but it's still a consideration (otherwise I'd just get a Kahn one or whatever). We have a huge leather factory just down the road from us here who make the raw material (tanned leather) for most of the big brands - JLR, AM and BA etc. Sadly I don't think they are open to the public to pop in and pick up a hide tanned to L405 almond

For me - and my wife - car seats basically fall into one of two categories: ones which are ok and ones which aren't. And that's it. Almost all of the big brands (Maxi Cosi, Concord, Recaro etc.) fall into the former. The no-name ones which can be bought on amazon or ebay for sub £50 are the latter. There's the odd one or two which get bad reviews (from the bigger names) which I'd avoid too.

Otherwise, as long as it ticks the "ok" box, it's more about whether it looks ok, fits ok (with Isofix that's rarely an issue now that I've moved away from a 911!) and ... er... that's it!

Man maths time then

I don't know how much a re-trim would cost - but I'd guess at £100 - so with a cheap seat back - £200 all in.

How many years will you have the car / kids in the seats - how many times will you get in the car & look at the seats - and you're probably down to pennies per time for something that will bring a smile to your face

Looking back, I regret very little that I have done, regardless of what it cost me - I regret a lot more things that I didn't do......

He he... man maths always gets me into trouble "but it's only..."

Still, you're right. Against the cost of the car and all that, a couple of hundred per seat is something that doesn't really cause issue. And, in fact, we have a spare car seat for one of them and I was looking at getting a cover for that anyway. I'll need to speak to a local upholster and see if they can re-upholster a child's car seat for me.

The difference in cost for that seat would be even less: I'm looking to pay £70 inc delivery for the "walnut brown" cover from Germany for the Maxi Cosi Priori which I already have sitting in the garage. So £100 + upholstery costs (let's call it £150 all in) and that's one perfect and basically brand new seat

Which just leaves the other one.

I have to say, the Concord seat above looks pretty awesome so I'm inclined to give that a whirl. Youngest will be out of her seat in a couple of years anyway (turns 3 in September) and will need something bigger by then - so I guess I'm just "testing" a couple of options to see which works best?

+1 for Concorde seats, we have a pair and theft are superb

ace

I can't comment on the colour but only you really know how exact you need to be but I did go from Maxi Cosi seats to Concord seats and can tell you that Maxi cosi are superb quality but large and heavy and Concord are superb quality and much lighter making it much better to throw the seats in and out if you have to and they will keep expanding in size until your kids are practically in college  2008 MY Supercharged
Rimini Red / Jet
four zone climate
remote park heater
and no ugly kid windows.
magnus satis quod turpis satis

Well brief, post holiday update... One concord seat ordered (from Italy for some reason where it was cheaper?) and I have a couple of upholsterers giving me prices to recover the Maxi Cosi Priori in almond(ish) leather.

Incidentally, the Prince Lionheart seat protector is fantastic! I had to cut out a hole in one for the seatbelt (behind passenger seat) but they look great and do an excellent job protecting the underlying leather seats from both digs/scrapes as well as mess - this is them and the colour match is not bad, even for Almond:

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I use old towels for that exact purpose. Although the wee man pished his pants in the car at the weekend and the fecking seat had had to be stripped & cleaned!

I'm a big fan of the Kiddy-Pro seats for our youngest as they were tested best when I bought them. They come with the Isofix points as well. And then just have some covers fitted. MY 2010 5.0 SC Galway green and sand interior!!
Have the Faultmate MSV2 Extreme to be tinkering with the settings etc. !!

Mr Tee wrote:

I use old towels for that exact purpose. Although the wee man pished his pants in the car at the weekend and the fecking seat had had to be stripped & cleaned!

I used to have to use towels in my 911 because it was the only way to get it to fit securely (towels wedged in allowed it to create a snug fit).

Since changing cars, I no longer want to see another childseat-towel combo But I agree, it does exactly the same job. To be fair, the Prince Lionheart thing wasn't that pricey and I felt it was worth it for the pretty close colour match.

However, I've just been quoted to get the smaller childseat re-upholstered in matching leather... £500 seems a bit steep, even if they're using the exact same hide (the supplier for JLR is just up the road anyway). Even for a vinyl re-upholstery job, it's likely to be £350.

So I think I'll just get the "nearly matching" Maxi Cosi replacement cover...

Ok the Maxi Cosi "Walnut Brown" is rather darker than I imagined but that's ok. Our youngest is the muckier of the two so a slightly darker shade is a more practical answer even if it's less of a perfect match with the interior. It does contrast pretty well and the two tones sit between the almond and the espresso pretty well. Overall it works for me.

I am tempted to buy and store another Concord seat in Almond though - it's genuinely a perfect match for the interior and it's a great seat. Only minor point is it isn't held firmly by the twinfix straps, so if there's no kid riding then it can wobble around a bit. No chance of it getting loose as the straps will ultimately restrain it, but there's a lot of play without the seatbelt in use. Of course, with a kid sitting there and belted in there's no movement at all so it's fine from a safety perspective.

The Almond one is an older model (I think) and I'm worried about it getting discontinued - hence the temptation to pre-buy and stick in the loft until I need it. It'll work until they're 12 too!