A Better Armrest

[Yeineken]

Originally Posted by 850tgul

So after reaching out to some vendors online inquiring about covering the E82 armrest and hitting a wall I decided to try a local upholstery shop. I separated the upper vinyl section from the bottom plastic section of the top lid and brought it over to have the vinyl covered in Alcantara. I was able to source some padded Alcantara and provided it to the upholsterer.

I think it came out fairly well and compliments the other Alcantara pieces I have in my interior nicely. Only problem is the color doesn’t 100% match the darker black Alcantara I already have covering a few pieces. I may have it redone in the correct color, and if so, I’ll offer up this cover on the forum.

The shop was able to turn this around for me over the course of a weekend and the cost was <$100. I prefer the look of the Alcantara to the vinyl and the extra padding makes the armrest that much more comfortable.

Here's the upper vinyl section covered in padded Alcantara before reinstallation







Installed

Turned out great. Can't wait for mine with stitching to go with the rest of the interior bits.

[swagon]

That looks quite nice.

I wish the OEM armrest was at least in leather.

They've got now an Alcantara M Performance armrest for the 1 - 4 Series and M3/M4.

[CAVU]

I'd be happy with the existing armrest if it didn't require application of lube to eliminate squeaks, and if the latch mechanism was more robust. I've addressed the squeaks, now the latch mechanism won't keep that damn thing shut. The dealer is waiting for parts to arrive to perform a warranty repair.

[Yeineken]

So small

As most of my projects this got put on the back burner due to me buying other things for the car

I was browsing the M2 forums and IND created their own Alcantara with blue stitching armrest... so I was thinking about reaching out to them for one to match the 1M's interior. However just doing a one off product would be expensive, and I think we can all appreciate IND's craftsmanship.

So would anyone be interested it doing a group buy? I would like to get a solid list of buyers before pitching this to IND. The stitching can change, so if you don't want the 1M's orange you could do white to match the BMW performance line.

http://ind-distribution.com/ind/cate...itched-armrest

[swagon]

I would love to have the armrest in Alcantara with white stitching, but I don't want to see the potential price tag...