And a pair of hog ring plyers and hog ring clips if you don't have any.

The divers side should be a straight swap of cushion and cover.

This was my second attempt at recovering seats and it went very easy. I did the passenger side and it took more work as I had to mod the cushion and the cover side skirt. The drivers side will not need any of these changes.

 

I understand the reasoning, I just think it was an ill-advised place to save a few hundred dollars. All it did was lead to a lot of confusion, and potential headaches for non-Performance owners come resale time.

 

To really rub salt in the wound, it was only something like $35 (employee pricing) to add the drivers preformance seat. The problem was that most dealers didn't even know it exsisted, so many stock order cars didn't have it/them

 

When cars come to market today they look at everything. I was even told they had to see how important the smell of leather seat were to future buyers. Yes Smell. It cost money to put the smell into leather as it is no longer a natural scent. Over a 100,000 car small things add up.

So as the SS goes they were looking to keep the price down in many ways.

Now if you did not know about the seats it means you did not do your home work. Not to box your ears here but the seats are mentioned in all the GM lit and GM web site info and is easy to find. You can still bring up the GM order info and options from 08 yet.

Save this as it may come in handy http://eogld.ecomm.gm.com/

A good buyer should never rely on the sales man or dealer as often they are the least informed people on the cars in many cases. The buyer should know as much or more on a car than the dealer it gives you an edge. The dealer knew about these but it is easier to sell a $24K SS vs a $27K SS. Also the $24K takes up less room on the floor plan they have to pay on.

For the most many people don't care and if they did not know about them they are not missing what they did not know.

Seat options have been common for years in many cars. Cadillac just came out with a new Recaro option for the standard CTS they are standard in the CTSV. Those are some really nice seats.

I only changed the other seat over since I hated the two seat bottoms looing different. Few noticed but it bugged me.

I love my seat but if I did not have it it is not that big of a deal. It is only the seat bottom that is different anyway. So don't be too upset as it is not that big of a deal.

 

[QUOTE=hyperv6;444399]Now if you did not know about the seats it means you did not do your home work. Not to box your ears here but the seats are mentioned in all the GM lit and GM web site info and is easy to find. You can still bring up the GM order info and options from 08 yet.

Save this as it may come in handy http://eogld.ecomm.gm.com/

A good buyer should never rely on the sales man or dealer as often they are the least informed people on the cars in many cases. The buyer should know as much or more on a car than the dealer it gives you an edge. The dealer knew about these but it is easier to sell a $24K SS vs a $27K SS. Also the $24K takes up less room on the floor plan they have to pay on.

QUOTE]

Hyper, my point was that it was only a few bucks to add the seat, and that wouldn't have driven up the floor plan much.
And, that the DEALERs weren't aware of them so they didn't order them on their floor plan cars.
I woud bet that most of the SS owners bought off the lot and did not have the luxery of ordering. Sometimes rebates are attractive, and with no guarantee of them being available when your ordered car comes in, convinced many of us to take off the lot. To Bad the DEALERS didn't know that there was an option (I had to explain it to 3 of my local dealers)

 

Dealers often follow what is called a Pattern Order. These are guides on how to best option vehicles for sale. They will help dealers get the most common or asked for options while keeping the vehicle priced where it may have a better chance to sell.

Pattern Orders help with sales campains by GM so the dealer will have the right options to take full advantage of discount offered by GM like a leather seat package or sun roof package.

Most cars sold are mid priced cars and not the full load cars. Few dealer order fully loaded anything unless they are a large dealer with a good chance to move it.

My dealer knew what the seat was.

As for getting what you want. Any dealer can trade to get what you want. My dealer had not had a SS for two month when I boght mine. We agreed on a fully loaded SS and they brought one in in a deale trade the next day from Dayton.

It is up to the owner to know what he wants. Other wise you are only going to get what they have.

Buyers need to do their home work. Too often buyers not only don't know anything about the vehicle but they do not know the pricing. That is why people get burned often. That is not the dealers fault.

 

Most dealers out this way never ordered their stock SS HHRs with roof rails either. I wanted them and I wanted them factory installed so I ordered my car that way. I also had been monitoring the board here for quite a while and knew in advance about the brake problem/fix and the performance seat situation so I delayed my order until I was sure I'd get both included on my car. Yeah, I kinda sweated the rebate situation at the end not knowing what I'd end up with when the car finally arrived but as it turns out I ended up getting a much BIGGER one than I planned on.

Bottom line: doing my homework and being patient got me a special ordered car that so far I haven't seen a duplicate of and is equipped EXACTLY as I want it.

 

I have an 2009 SS manual and both seats are performance seats but they dont have performance tags. Its interesting to see all the variations of these seats.

 

Well, I understand your point, but not exactly correct. I live in New Orleans; the dealership in witch I bought my car is not a small dealership. I actually had more info on this car than they ever had. They actually built mine from floor up. They wanted to ship mine from some other state, but none had the options that I wanted. Waited two months for the build. They stop making the HHR SS right after I bought mine. April '08 this vehicle came to a stop. "Not sure if many people know that." This is why is so important to have my car signed for before April '08. I was told this vehicle would not be able to be built if signed after Arpril 1. My car comes in, and enough HHR SS's were bought, so new styles and makes (colors,panel) were decided to be made. My car was pulled from the assembly line THREE times because I discovered something on the car that they had no idea about!!!! They didn't even know what LSD was for.?????WTF Not only did the dealer ship not even hear of such a car, only one guy kinda new about it and told me "No one was brave enough to pull the trigger". I was the first HHR SS purchased through this dealership. I sold the car to myself. After much frustration (three assembly line pulls), I had them print the options for me so I could check everything off that I wanted. They finally got the point. "Then to make it more interesting; I brought it in for some maitenance. The guys in the shop didn't understand what the big deal was. It's JUST a regular HHR with a kit on it right? I laughed... This is why I am aggravated I guess. They don't always know what they are selling.

 

Sounds as if you just had a poor dealer and you went in very unprepared

Order pulled three times? Sounds like you needed to do your homework as badly as youre dealer.

The web site I listed above was available then as it is now with every RPO option and product update. It is not real hard to find with Google.

As for you stop building SS after April 08? What do you mean just a short time they stopped? Must have not stopped too long as many here have May and June builds including mine. The 09 did not start till July.

Most dealer do not operate this way. My salesman knew what I wanted and knew all about the SS. Their service deparment has a tech that does all the Turbo work and knows the Cobalt, HHR and Truck turbo's inside out. He even owns one himself. It is a medium size dealer but it is run as it should be.

Many dealers suffer from uninformed sales staff as sales for many are revolving doors. But the people who order the cars have the info and know what they are ordering for inventory. They just don't dart board this stuff.

All I am saying they choose cars for the lot that they look at what people want and the options that are often asked for. Seat options in other cars has never been a automatic must have and in 08 was not seen to be that important by many. I am sure most were trying to keep the price down as there were not many options on the SS but many that were not ordered with the extras.

The same goes for Color. GM build most of them Black and Red as that is what most aske for. GM sets Patterns to help move cars.

With the way information is available there is no reason why anyone would have to go to the dealer uninformed and unprepared. With the ease of getting info today you could and should have been able to walk into the dealer with every RPO cose you wanted.

Seat options are nothing new the TA had many years with Recaro options but few were ever purchased. In 08 I would see the dealer not think it as being important also the idea of two different front seats may or could kill a sale. It did look odd if you noticed it. Once the second seat came around it made more sense.