NEO-ULTRA SEAT COVERS | NEOPRENE | NEOSUPREME | FABRIC COMPARISON
Choose your fabric below:
SELECTING THE BEST NEOPRENE STYLE FABRIC
When you’re looking to buy Neoprene Style Seat Covers, one of the most popular lifestyle fabrics, you should be aware of the choices you have available to you. There are 3 different versions you can choose from; Neoprene, NeoSupreme and the New Neo-Ultra.
1. Neoprene seat covers have been around for more than 50 years and its popularity is based on the Southern California Surf Culture. It was the only option for waterproof materials back then. Its resilience against water made it a popular choice, but it also came at a cost. The Neoprene Rubber is not breathable, off-gasses a noxious and potentially harmful gas of chemicals and it may cause skin irritations as well. It will be in landfills for 50+ years.
2. Neosupreme was developed as a cheaper version of neoprene. The CR or SBR Rubber was eliminated, therefore reducing the material to Non-Waterproof status. The fabric allows water to soak directly in to the foam cushioning and it will remain wet or damp until it finally dries. If a cushy look is what you’re looking for then NeoSupreme seat covers would be good as an economical option.
3. Neo-Ultra™ is the 3rd step in the evolutionary cycle for this type of material. We wanted to create a fabric that included all of the benefits of its competitors, but without the negative aspects. So, we developed a fabric that would reinstate Waterproofing, match its Comfort Level and provide a Special Anti-Snag seating surface for higher Abrasion Resistance. Neo-Ultra seat covers also include a natural color on the backside of the fabric to eliminate crocking which is the transfer of color dyes onto your original seats.
The Neo-Ultra™ is a New Technology fabric that provides the best of what Neoprene and NeoSupreme have to offer, but adds additional value for your purchase. They’re comfortable for cars, durable enough for SUVs and tough enough for Medium Duty Wear in Work Trucks.
Durability
When we first consider a fabric we always look at the Wyzenbeek test results.
This is also known as the double rub test. This is a durability test that was developed by 20th century inventor Andrew Wyzenbeek. A piece of automotive fabric is placed on top of a half-cylinder covered in a #8 cotton duck fabric. The half-cylinder then rocks back and forth simulating, in this case, the action of someone sliding into his car seat and sliding out. This is one double rub.
UV Protection
The second factor we look at is UV light protection. After many test samples, we decided to include a grade 3.5 UV light protective coating (200 hrs). The fabric will still fade over time but, at a much slower rate. Grade 1 coatings leave fabric feeling very natural but, with almost no protection, the color black would turn to brown in one year. Grade 5 coating does a very good job for protection but, makes the fabric quite stiff. Outdoor furniture is often receive grade 4.0 – 5.0 coatings.
Flammability & Safety
The third consideration is flammability. Our fabrics are FR coating and depending on the style of fabric they’ll pass either the FMVSS302 (Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard) or CPAI 84 Sections 5 and 6.
Waterproof
The fourth aspect we take into consideration is a fabric’s ability to provide waterproof protection. Most of our fabrics offer high water repellency or are waterproof. Just as with outerwear, at some point due to normal use, the effectiveness of a fabric’s ability to repel water will diminish. You can restore the fabric by either spraying Scotchgard on our O.E fabrics or a DWR (Durable Water Repellant) on any of our others.
HD Designs
Technology has really changed what we can do with fabrics. A good example of that is the family of camouflage fabrics we offer. Realtree, Mossy Oak, and Fishouflage all require as many as 10 screens to produce the camo seat cover patterns we all love.
Our fabrics really shine in HD because of the quality of the image when using heat transfer paper and the fact that we use durable 600 denier polyester fabrics.