Corbeau Trailcat seats, anyone use, beige, pictures?

Look what showed up today! I had my hands full installing my crawl box today, but hopefully will get around to these tomorrow and post back with pictures and initial impressions.

 

I can't wait! I'm excited for you!

Hope they do you well.

 

Saweet! I’m excited for you and look forward to the coming review.

 

Very eager to see how this turns out! Exciting times!

 

Sorry to keep y’all waiting!

I had plans to work on my triple sticks today and get to the seats later on if time allowed, but then other stuff came up and before I knew it it was mid afternoon.. so I decided to..

Put the seats in and get an easy win for the day

Pardon the pictures, I have a fancy new camera I took a bunch of pictures with, but I’m having technical difficulties transferring the images lol, so I only have a few that I snapped with my phone for the time being.

It wasn’t quite as easy as I thought, but it certainly wasn’t too hard. On a 1-10 scale, 1 being checking your engine oil, and 10 being rebuilding an engine, I’d rate this as a 3. Nothing was particularly challenging, but some areas took a bit of muscle and others a bit of finesse. I guess maybe I should rephrase, it was easy, but it took a bit longer than I expected.

Packaging was superb, everything was neat, stable, wrapped well, and easy to remove.

The seat brackets attach to the seats in a couple of minutes, really easy to set up. Then I scratched my head for a minute on the seat belts.

There is a tab that comes off the seat bracket for the seat belt to attach to. On the stock seats the seat belt attaches directly to the seat via a welded stud to the frame and a nut, and the actual seat belt bracket rests on a smooth surface so that it can pivot. So I had a nut, but no proper hardware for the seat belt. I ran to Home Depot and picked up some M10-1.25 x 25mm Flange Bolts and Nuts, and a few washers, and improvised. I first tried putting the seat belt on the outside of the bracket as one would intuit, but it ran into the center console well before the seat brackets were aligned to their mounting holes. Below you can see the final layout I went with. One issue I ran into was that the seat belt no longer pivoted like it does on the stock seats since it was now just a nut and bolt set up. I ended up putting a bunch of thread locker on the hardware and got it JUST snug enough so that there was no movement in the hardware, but that the seat belt would pivot. Ultimately the seat belt still makes solid contact with the center console, so pivoting probably isn’t going to be a big thing anyways haha. Go figure. Maybe I’ll bend the seat belt bracket tomorrow..



Next up was actually bolting them in. It was fairly straight forward, the driver side was a breeze, took all of a minute or 2. The passenger side was a little more tedious because I have an amplifier for my stereo in the area under the seat. Hard to say if that was the cause of everything, because I was able to reposition the amplifier and clear the bracket, but the passenger side bracket did not align as well as the drivers side with the mounting holes. The rear mounting hole (passenger side) was a PITA, had to really lean and push on the bracket to get the bolt started, but after that it was all smooth.

So I stood back, and checked them out.. VERY pleased with their aesthetics. Again, I apologize for the limited pictures, this is what I have for now.





Next thing I did was hop in! The moment of truth, kind of..

I can’t really speak to them in a full review sense because my truck is still not driveable at the moment. BUT my initial impression from at least sitting in them is simply “worth every damn penny!”. These things are cozy, and supportive, ride height is great, and they have plenty of adjustability for 6’5” me to be comfortable. The bucket isn’t anymore extreme than stock, perhaps even a little calmer. The torso bolsters are fantastic, I think the way they are angled will be really forgiving for just about every body type. I have some fancy seats in my Focus RS and the bolstering is pretty extreme, it’s always hit or miss whether passengers are comfortable or not; I do not see that being an issue with these, the torso bolstering is almost gentle, but doesn’t feel like it’ll let you down when the trail is jostling you around. The thigh bolsters are exactly what I had hoped for as well; they are there, you notice them, but they don’t interfere AT ALL with entering or exiting the seat. Back to my Focus RS, you have to practically levitate over the damn thigh bolsters to get in and out of those seats, which would not work well in a truck, not my truck at least. I’m absolutely thrilled with them at this point, and I know I don’t have any actual drive time in them yet, but I’ve sat in enough seats to believe in confidence that these are going to be one of those mods I’ll be grateful for every time I get in the rig.

Now, I got mine with Lumbar and Heat, figured if I was going in on these might as well go all in.

The Lumbar system is the old school pump type, which is kind of cool if you ask me (you also get to make stupid Arnold jokes for free with “the pump”). Not really a lot to discuss here, came installed, you pump it up, the bladder inflates and supports your lumbar region. It’ll be a nice addition for dialing in comfort, especially on longer trips.

The seat heaters come installed into the seat itself, with all the necessary wiring to complete the install to your vehicle. I did end up running to my local O’Reillys to pick up a couple add-a-fuses to make things easier (electrical is NOT my forte!). I pondered a couple different locations, but ultimately decided that the area just forward of, and next to the seat, on the center console run, would be best for me and my passenger. Putting them on top of the center console would make them easier to trigger accidentally, and putting them near the stereo, 12v, ashtray area could mean more reaching and repositioning, and I want to keep that real estate open for other aftermarket switches and comms. Another bonus of the area I decided on was all the empty space under the center console, made stuffing the excess wiring (there’s a lot of it) easy.



The seat heaters themselves are pretty great. There are two settings, both of which are quite fast. Not as fast as the ones in my Focus RS, but faster than the ones in my girlfriends Subaru and the ones in my dads older F150. Before I had a vehicle with seat heaters I thought it was just a gimmick, nowadays I’m pretty attached to them. It’s really nice to have that alternative form of heat, the sort that kind of soaks into your body, as opposed to running the heater and having the heat flow over you. One other benefit is if you or passenger want more or less heat than the other; one can have the seat heater on and have their needs meet without having to run the heater and disturb the other.

I could probably ramble on some more, but that’s pretty much it for my initial thoughts and impressions and I’ve probably put y’all to sleep by now anyways Feel free to ask any questions or request any pictures.

Ps. Hopefully I can figure out this fancy new camera and swap out the cell phone pictures for some higher quality ones, these things look gooooooood!

 

Steven, thanks for the thorough hot take. It seems like they will be a great fit for your truck. For whatever it’s worth from a random guy on the Internet, I’m super stoked for you.

 

Following up.

Put many miles on the Trailcats? How you liking them?

 

I wish I had more to report, truck hasn’t moved an inch hopefully I’ll be able to chime in with a road review sooner rather than later, need to get my driveshafts back from the shop and put those on, then need to trim fenders and tub the firewall, once those items are finished I’ll be able to actually drive it. Really looking forward to that day!

 

Nice.

please report back when you do put some miles on them. I’m really curious.

 

Does anyone know how the GTS II are compared to stock seats? I’m just concerned about driver seat height

 

Good day! This is my first post on the forum. I have been looking for options to replace/reupholster my '96 regular cab bench seat. I certainly have more pressing issues with my Tacoma than the seats, but I received a quote from a local reupholsterer to learn that at minimum the estimate for retouching my seats would be more than the cost of a season ski pass. Though I imagine a shade of brown will not match my grey/blue interior, I was wondering if you had found a fate for your stock seats.

Google searches for seat replacements give me questionable Ebay and ancient Tacoma World listings. This is the most recent 1st gen seat-related thread that I have found. I'm still learning how to navigate and search Tacoma World, but I thought I'd take the chance to reach out here!

Your Corbeaus look fantastic!

 

Thank you, and welcome to the forum!

Reupholstery shops can be expensive, they can also vary greatly, if you have multiple shops in your area get quotes from all of them; I had quotes for the benches in my bronco from 1400 all the way up to 4500 (front and rear bench, vinyl 2 tone, heated front bench). I of course went with the 1400 option, and I was very pleased with them! Here are a couple pictures of them finished up for that price.



My stock seats have found a new home, if you decide to go the route of switching out for better condition stock seats I’d say keep a close eye on Craigslist and other marketplaces (the classifieds here are a great resource as well!). Junkyards can have them as well, but you have to be pretty lucky to get to it before it’s either taken or destroyed by people not caring while they get other parts.

Aftermarket seats are also a great option, especially if your local upholstery shop quotes are all coming out higher than your desired aftermarket setup.

 

I’m a nagging stalker.

Any road trips, reviews, thoughts?

 

Man, I sure wish I could give a more detailed usage update!!! Unfortunately the taco has fallen waaaay down on my priority list, been focusing on clearing up property and getting ready to build a house, and getting married. In fact, the Taco is currently about 150 miles away sitting and waiting for me on the property. Good news is that I’ll be living on the property full time in June, so I will have a lot more opportunity to finish things up and actually drive the damn truck (haven’t really driven it since January 2020!).

I’m sure that’s far from the updated news you were looking for, but keep on stalking, I really want to get the rig usable before summer ends!

 

Sounds like you need to pass those seats onto my back/ass so I can give a fair review

 

lol, if you were nearby I’d be happy to let you swap them in and go for a spin

 

Careful, I'm liable to drive down there and take you up on that.

Curious, how'd you decide on the Trailcats vs the Baja XRS? Do you have any idea of the difference? On the Corbeau site, the Baja's are in the "suspension" section, and the Trailcats are in the "reclining," but of course they both recline so...

 

Be careful, if you come down I’ll try and get some welding lessons from ya Pretty much at the point where everything that needs to be done requires welding.. have a welder now, just zero experience lol.

As far as deciding on which seats, I like the dimensions and aesthetics a little bit more on the Trailcat than the Baja series. I figured you probably can’t go wrong either way, so I just went with what my eye liked more and what I thought would fit my body better, they also have a lower thigh bolster, so less wear and tear getting in and out of the lifted truck.

 

How much space is underneath the seats? I have an under seat subwoofer that's about 3inches deep and fits fine under the factory seat but am worried about the space with aftermarket corbeau sliders.

 

I’m not with the truck at the moment, but I will be with the truck this weekend and can double check. If memory serves me, it should fit. I have my 5 channel amp under my seat with no issues.