Seats. They can make or break a long haul. Wear them out and even short commutes can be unbearable. So let’s join Dan Maffett in the garage for some seat of the pants advice in this week’s “Your Drive.”

DAN MAFFETT: If you have a work truck or a work SUV or a van, something that requires you to step up in or out of the vehicle, you’ve probably noticed that your seats are starting to get some wear. The first thing that goes is going to be your seat cover, followed by the cushion inside. And once those start going, there’s only one way to fix it, and that’s replacing it. It used to be you had to find an upholstery shop and they would re-do the entire seat for you, and you’re talking thousands of dollars. But we’ve found you can order seat skins and even replace the foam inside your seat, and it’s a simple DIY procedure that you can do in your own garage, in your driveway… and a seat like this that’s basic with no electronic options is a breeze.  If you have something that has a little more electronics in it, like adjustability, and the lumbar or anything, you’re going to have to remove those electronics first to get to the frame, but it’s a great DIY option.

The first step is you want to take apart all these clips that are holding the skin on. So, you just want to go through, break these loose… just like this. Just like that, you’ve got your clips off… flip it back over, and your seat cover comes off just like that. The foam comes with it, you take this, you don’t need that anymore.

Take our new foam, line it up on your seat frame. 

Give the seat foam a good press, make sure that it’s seated into the frame, take your seat cover, line that up, and there is a velcro strip right through here. You want to make sure those are as lined up as you can possibly get them before you start stretching the seat…. Just like that. Give them a good tug, all the way around the edges….

Alright, now it’s a nice, plump, filled with the new foam, so you want to flip it over… cause you’re going to need a lot of leverage to compress this foam to get these clips to go back in.

So now we’ve got all of our clips back on, flip it back over, if you see any wrinkles or anything, you can just give them a good press or if you have a big wrinkle you just give it a slap.

You want to press right here where that Velcro is, make sure it’s nice and seated in there. And once your wrinkles are all out, you’ve got yourself a brand-new seat. Any questions or comments, hit us up right here at MotorWeek.