[Chrysler300] Legendary (literally) Seat Covers for C (aka 300 equivalent of OJ's Glove)

["rob kern" <robkern@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello 300'ly to all!
    Just compiling a bunch of vignettes (albeit expensive ones) to augment Charlie's NewsFlite articles. All personally experienced.  The saga in progress is my Christmas treat to Mopsy of new Legendary front and rear seat covers.  This and new bumpers (another story...stay tuned) are the last items on my list of fine tuning to get my C where I want her (perfection effort that I'm seriously wondering if at all worth the hastle...so read on). December 4, 2007 the decision is made to purchase new seat covers when I receive the Legendary Interiors holiday discount special...10% off and free shipping! (how prophetic).  I call and put the order in while looking at their website.  What a compliment....their rear seat photo demonstrating THEIR rear covers for the C hardtop is my existing ones made by Goers! OK, lets get the covers and move forward.  Right..... with several backsteps and back flips and bellyflops in between.  Of course plunking down the $2212 was acceptable since I saved the shipping and about $300 to boot (majic number that 300). "You'll have them in 8 weeks" they said, enjoy the holidays dreaming about your new seat covers. Dewy eyed mysticism set in thinking that this no-brainer new upgrade will be so beautiful and hassle-free since it only involves removing my seats and taking them 2 miles down the road to the upholstery shop and presto...the only concern will be how soon I can get them back in the car for spring car shows!  I was under the impression that in early February I would have the seat covers so advertised my old ones on a Saturday afternoon in January at which time they sold in 10 minutes to the first buyer (e-mail response wasn't quick enough so he called me via probably iridion satellite phone before I received his e-mail. SOLD!! Three other club members were in line to purchase. This gave me that "loving feeling" that all was right and this was my final reward for the trials and tribulations with Mopsy the past 5 yeras.  Yeah, and if a pig could fly!  Mid-February the phone calls to Legendary start on my part. "Just a slight delay in that the material is back-ordered".  Wait a minute.....you mean that you dudes don't even have the material yet?  It's been 10.5 weeks.  Of course the Discover Card bill was already paid, so that was some consolation. End of February I call them, after I've been repeatedly told that they will call me when they are completed for shipment. The next call was precious, "Oh yes, we shipped them to you yesterday!" Where?  You were going to call me for the final shipping adress?  Pregnant pause....believe me, as an obstetrician there is no such thing, those babies slide out when they want without a pause!  "Well, I have to reseach that and we'll call you back"  Don't, I'll call you in an hour.  "We close in 20 minutes" Duh, can I hold while you find where they were shipped? "Sorry, shipping went home 15 minutes ago and locked their computers.  We'll call tomorrow.  But we did ship express since you waited so long!"  Great, now I have to contact any family member, my office, neighbors, etc. to be on the lookout for 2 big boxes of Legendary seat covers that might show up by BROWN. Visions of these boxes sitting on my front walk saturated by rain are creaping in my mind.  Or worse some BROWN guy walks into the lobby of the office blaring out that my seat covers are here when I'm running 2 hours behind schedule. Pissed-off patients stampeding out...great.... can I now afford to get these installed? The worst nightmare was some homeless guy going through the neighborhood trash picking takes them if they were put out by the curb by BROWN and he thinks he hit the motherload!  All he needs is to get an old chair frame and its Lazy Boy time! Well they arrive, fortunately to my office while I'm scheduled to be in surgery so no patients are waiting.  I get back from the OR and there is a cacaphony of nurses singing your new LEATHER seats are here! Great!! (Don't think you're getting a chance to sit in the back seat, I'm happily married and don't want tattoos to rub off on them or your body piercings to marr them).  Quick phone call to the upholstery shop...."I'm a week behind, but no problem bring them a week from Monday with the rear seats first"  SWEET! We are well into Lent and giving up chocolate I thought was my major sacrifice. The Lord and this hobby teaches patience.  Meanwhile I'm e-mailing the buyer of my seat covers each week with status updates. I drop the seat covers and rear seats off to the Upholsterers with a smile.  Smart this uphosterer, he wants to do the rears first so I can still drive Mopsy on health runs and not be dead-in-the-water waiting on him. Easter Monday.  I call the uphosterer.  "Yeah bring the front seats , I'll have these ready this afternoon".  The Friday before between deliveries I get my buddy Jerry Wise to meet me at the storage garage where Mopsy resides while Marnie is home, and we take the front seats out oh so carefully (after limbering up so that we can be stealthy in transitting across the front passenger compartment while lifting the seat out). Don't want to scratch anything that was already so painstakingly accomplished now , do we? I get the front seat in the back of the Escalade and between rain showers on Easter Monday afternoon proceed to the uphoslters. Get there, and the uphosterer greets me at the door.  "I was just calling your office.  These seat covers don't fit!" Can't be, they're Legendary. Nope. "Remeber the OJ glove deal?"...I'm sick now, I don't want to barf...not on the existing seat covers, they're already sold! Sure enough, a minimum of 2" short in every dimension and the pattern is off.  The only thing that was measured correctly was the rear vinyl piece for the front seat backs....probably a $19.99 material cost of the $2212!  Thank goodness I had Legendary on speed dial...it was already 4:20 EST!  Got a hold of Legendary and of course Tech support left for the day.  Got his extension though! Several more calls and conversations between my upholsterer and Legendary's tech support, 2 sleepless nights on my part, and the uphosterer starts acting like a stubborn mule. Fortunately a mule won't step where it doesn't want to go and the upholsterer didn't want to mess with the covers for fear of damaging them. I call Legendary back after a 3:00 am revelation comes to me and inquire about shipping my existing seat covers back to them with their new ones so that they can make any adjustments necessary to fit my seats.  "Great idea" they said.  "We will pay for shipping back to us for both sets of covers since this was the first time this ever happened " (sure). So off they go.  Tracking via FedEx was to become the new seat cover enjoyment for me. A few days later I get a phone call from Legendary!  Finally!  (is this a good or bad omen?) "Hey, our seat covers are correct, yours are oversized and not the originals".  Sure, I told them they are Gary Goers, but then I told them that they had them pictured as their's on the Legendary on-line catalogue (just had to get that zing in as I was mentally tying a knot at the end of my rope). All possible scenarios of what to do next go through my mind.  All my seats are apart and the covers are in Newark, New York. Mopsy is dead-in-the-water in the storage garage with a step stool for a front seat.  It never seems to fail, that I get in a project with this car that doesn't get hamstrung because of ghosts of hobbyist past, or current inadequacies to but it politely.  Another lost night's sleep and at 3:00 am (another 300 epiphany?) it dawns on me to just ship the seat frames to Legendary and let them custom fit OJ's gloves with the correct padding and burlap, cotton, whatever.  While they are at it why not bead blast the frames and paint them the correct black. The money meter starts turning again. I call Legendary the first thing in the morning and they think it is the only way to go and so does my upholsterer.  Well Jerry goes and gets the frames, padding ,etc. from the upholsterer and boxes up the seats.  Try shipping seat frames!  Price quotes go from $1300 to $1600 for Yellow freight or UPS freight and of course the nearest freight depot is in Texas! I call Legendary and their shipping guy says no problem, "I just shipped a crate weighing about a ton of seat material to Key West for under $600.  Just give me the weight of each box and the dimensions and I'll issue a pick up tag for the body shop to have them picked up tomorrow".  Great!  Things are looking like the plan is coming together. The one way shipping comes to $340, a bargain and I don't have to load up the truck and go to Texas! Four pick up numbers are issued through Legendary via FedEx to be picked up the Friday after Easter.  FedEx comes by and states they only have one label, pick up one box and they are gone!  I get a call from the body shop that 3 boxes of seat frames remain.  "What to do?"  Legendary gets a speed dial from me just before they close and they throw a fit that the FedEx guy didn't read the tag for the four box numbers. Thanks guys, I'm paying for all this grief and get caught in the middle.  FedEx tells the body shop TTFN until the following Tuesday!  Legendary pulls strings and the FedEx dudes show up on Monday to get the boxes.  Miraculously all 4 show up at the same time to Legendary.  Meanwhile Legendary sends me back my original covers, which I put in a Legendary box (poetic justice) and ship to their new owner along with a bicycle box full of padding, burlap, kitchen towels, cardboard and whatever else were stuffed in those seats, because we all know that a man's hand can't fit in OJ's glove so arriva d'arce! Trying to ship these were not easy but this story is getting a liittle long.  Just say for $271 the pads, etc. and seat covers arrived safely to their new owner.  So now I've got all my seats in the hands of Legendary.  A phone call to Wayne Graefen confirmed that this was the RIGHT thing to do and I can sleep on it.  Apparently it has been known that Goers seat covers were prone to dimensional deviations. Isn't that a fact.  Well, Wayne's word is the Good House Keeping Seal of Approval in my book and back to sweet dreams of driving Mopsy with seats again and not propped on a foot stool hanging on to the wheel for dear life. Well, Legendary has the seats for now 3 weeks and I'm told that they are having to redo them since dimensionally the were way off and that they have put 26 hours of work into the pads,etc. but are only charging me half that time since they are having to make new templates for C seats!! Imagine that. So by mid month they should be ready to ship.  My upholsterer will assemble the front seat backs to bottom seat and it will be done.  $1134 more to Legendary (including return shipping....real deal since diesel went up about .50/gallon since Easter) and this stroy should come to a happy ending. Legendary assures me they will be mint quality and a little voice is telling me that will be true. Since there is nothing easy about restoring a '57 Chrysler, this rings home to be the correct other half of the story.  Hopefully future C owners will benefit from the new templates made for C seat covers and will not experince this horse and pony show! ROB KERN

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