Truck Seat Covers Guide
Are you wondering if truck seat covers are a good idea for your rig? Seat covers are a great way to protect your factory seats. Not only will you enjoy sitting in them more but keeping them in good shape can help your truck maintain a higher resale value.
If you’re like many truck owners, your truck probably sees a lot of wear and tear on a daily basis. Your interior is likely to get just as dirty as your exterior in many cases. Unfortunately, interiors aren’t as easy to clean as exteriors – especially if you have cloth seats. Seat covers for your truck can help.
Reasons For Installing Seat Covers
There are plenty of reasons why you might want seat covers in your truck. For starters, if you’ve got kids, you know how messy they can get, right? If your truck is new, protecting your factory upholstery might be the main reason. Even if you recently bought an old truck and the interior is a little beat up, you might want seat covers to freshen things up.
Some good reasons for installing seat covers in your truck include:
- Add more durability to your work truck’s seats
- Easier to clean up than factory many factory covers
- Protect your factory upholstery from UV rays
- Provide pet owners with a removable, easy-to-clean cover
- Make your truck’s interior look better
Best Materials For Truck and Jeep Seat Covers
Aftermarket truck seat covers are constructed from several types of materials, including everything from natural leather to fully synthetic fabrics. Which type works for you might be determined by the reason you want them in the first place. Let’s take a look at the features and benefits of different types of seat covers.
Leather Seat Covers
Leather seat covers add luxury to any vehicle. They are comfortable, easy to clean up, and almost always increase a truck’s resale value, compared to cloth seats. People often equate leather with luxury, but leather has a lot of practical functions as well. Regular leather is nearly waterproof, while perforated leather is less waterproof, but offers better ventilation. Some of today’s leather seat covers fit so well, that you might think the seats came with leather from the factory! A downside to leather is that it does tend to get a bit hotter during the summer than cloth seats.
Leatherette Seat Covers
Leatherette is made from material that looks and feels like leather but is more durable and less finicky. It’s not porous, so it’s fully waterproof and prevents messes from sinking deep into the material. It also doesn’t stain very easily. It’s pretty hard to find a downside for leatherette as even the price range is quite reasonable. Like natural leather, leatherette looks great, but can also hold the heat on those simmering summer days.
MicroSuede Seat Covers
Despite the name, microsuede is not a product of cowhide but rather polyester. As such, microsuede comes in a wide range of colors, but it’s commonly found in neutral leather-style covers like beige, gray, tan, black, etc. Microsuede is water-resistant and can be made more so with additional treatments. It has a rich feel and appearance, much like real suede, and it’s also quite durable since it is made from synthetic fibers.
Canvas Seat Covers
Canvas was traditionally made from tightly woven cotton, but now most modern canvas is made from polyester. Canvas is popular for truck bench seat covers, especially in the back seat. Pet owners like how durable it is. It resists snags and claw punctures and is also water-resistant. Canvas comes in a wide array of colors and we even offer canvas camo truck seat covers.
Cordura and Ballistic Nylon Seat Covers
Both of these heavy fabrics were originally developed for military and combat use. When you need super-tough material to protect the seats in your truck, these seat covers are the way to go. They are very similar to canvas, but even tougher, and typically come in neutral colors like earth tones.
Neoprene and Neosupreme Seat Covers
Used by SCUBA divers for decades, Neoprene is a synthetic waterproof material that will keep any seat fresh. Neoprene seat covers are very popular with Jeep owners, who often find themselves caught in rainstorms with their tops down. If you fish or engage in other water sports, you’ll also appreciate the waterproof function of neoprene. However, neoprene is a very thick (and expensive) material that can be difficult to work with and sew. Fitted seat covers are much more complex than wet suits and require a lot more material.
That’s where neosupreme comes in. Similar to neoprene, neosurpreme blends in polyester. This makes the seat covers more flexible and versatile in terms of construction, colors and patterns, but they’re more water-resistant vs. waterproof. They are definitely worth looking at since they are more affordable than neoprene truck seat covers.
Saddle Blanket Seat Covers
As you might expect, saddle blanket seat covers are constructed from heavy-duty tweed material - just like a horse saddle blanket. The coarse weave is much better at resisting wear and tear than factory fabric. These seat covers usually come in familiar Southwest and Old West-style patterns and colors.
Camouflage Seat Covers
Camo isn’t a material, but there’s no doubt that camo seat covers are among the most popular styles for truck owners. They don’t just come in the standard green and brown either. You can find a wide range of color combinations and patterns, including DigiCamo, Retro, snow patterns, and colors like gray, pink, blue, etc.
Canvas and Ballistic nylon are popular materials for camo seat covers, as well. Some camo seat covers even come printed with well-known pattern brands like Realtree.
Water Resistant vs. Waterproof
One of the most common questions we get from customers looking at seat covers is, “What’s the difference between ‘water-resistant’ and “waterproof?” This is a great (and important) thing to understand when shopping for truck seat covers because there is definitely a difference.
Water-resistant materials usually have dense material or a tight weave that makes it harder for liquids to penetrate deeply into the fabric. Even the tightest woven materials will always have microscopic gaps or pores between the threads, though. Those tiny holes have the potential of letting in water – especially over time after they’ve been used a good bit.
On the other hand, “waterproof” means that liquid cannot penetrate the material. Since neoprene is similar to rubber, it does not allow any water through, which is why SCUBA divers use it.
For most people, water-resistant will do the trick, but for people who know that their truck seats will see a lot of wetness, waterproof is the way to go.
Some top brands sold at H&H Truck Accessories for seat covers include:
Get the best truck seat covers and a wide range of other truck accessories and parts at H&H Truck Accessories. You can shop online or in our well-stocked stores. We also provide installation at our stores for most of the products we sell.