I bought a leather steering wheel recover kit from one of our 914 distributor of parts who shall remain nameless for this post. I received the wrong item.

As the kit clearly came from Alan Gun's Custom-steering-wheels.com company I decided to give him a shout. I was also trying to set off the wheel with a different color thread and didn't where to source it. After an e-mail exchange Alan sent to me a new kit sized correctly for my old wheel AND supplied the red thread I was looking for. He asked only that I return the old kit in the prepaid shipping sleeve he supplied.

A standup guy and supplier to the 914 Community who should be recognized.

Thanks Alan

I too received the wrong kit from a Porsche parts supplier and reached out to Alan on his company FB account. He informed me that the vendor doesn't stock the kit I needed.

He shipped correct kit and paid for postage both ways.

With such a reputation, and being a resource for the community, I will look at stocking his product. Nice to see a manufacturer support their product no matter where it was purchased and even though they had no control on what was sent to you.

I just put one of Alan’s RSR kits on my wheel last week. He was great to work with and the kit came with everything needed including the felt, glue and everything needed to pad the wheel and cover it. The only thing is if you want a tight fit be prepared to trim the leather at the spokes and push the needles though without the holes you trimmed off. Other than that very happy with the results.

Same here, bought from a big supplier for a later wheel but the leather was for the early wheel. Got in touch with Alan and he supplied me with the correct cover. Unfortunately his replacement was not symmetrical. It was about a half inch off on one side so the spoke ends would not line up properly no matter where you adjusted the leather on the wheel. The cover was also way too wide as it overlapped and would have to be trimmed and hole punched again to fit tight. He agreed to send me another one and I just got it last week. Car is in for paint now so will see how it fits when it comes back.

Just my .02...the original supplier should have listed it properly on their website so Alan didn't have to go through this. It should be corrected. We will also see if the new one fits like it should.

Brian

Alan was never known for his customer service. Glad to see that’s changing. I ordered a kit from him 5 years ago. Took about 3 months to show up. The holes were so mismatched it was unusable. Leather was very cheap. I just figured that’s what you got for $60 and sent the wheel off to Dallas Steering Wheel.

Be advised ............……. after trying to work with Alan Gun for a couple of months, May thru Nov, I finally thru in the towel and went to Dallas Wheel for my leather recover work. Thought Alan would/could make a good kit and I would do the stitching and found out after two wraps with poor quality that I could no longer continue the relationship. Both wraps had issues such as varying width of leather and too many too few holes along the edges. They didn't match side to side. Hole location to edge also varied. Poor quality. Tried to get him to reimburse the cost of the cost of the kit and send me a prepaid shipper so I could return the discrepant items for a refund and he said NO. Wants me to pay for shipping and I must have documentation proof that I paid for them. This is bad business practice. If you make an error stand by it. He doesn't get it.

He did offer to wrap the wheel for a discounted price but after the poor quality of the 2 wraps I received I was not going to follow that path.

By the way my Dallas wheel was shipped by me on a Friday and I got back a perfect wheel in black leather with red thread after only 1 week as I got it Fed-X the Sat following. I recommend highly Dallas Wheel. Pricey but excellent service.
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My wheel is an Alan Gunn product. If you’ve seen it, you know it’s excellent. But with a story.

I called Alan Gunn and told them I wanted my wheel ‘fat wrapped.’ They guy on the phone knew what I wanted, quoted a price I could live with and I sent my wheel off.

Fast forward about 8 months. Yes, 8 months.

I called them on the phone and got the man himself on the line. “Well first of all, we can’t do it at that price.” Price goes up 50 percent. Another 3 months go by and the wheel arrives. No one asked me for money??? I send off the originally quoted price. Never heard another word. Now that’s a disorganization!

Mepstien is right. AGLA earned their rep long ago. Before you deal with them, you should be aware...

@mikey914 our guy does wheels. You should talk to him.

In my opinion there is no comparison with Dallas, they have done over a dozen wheels for me with zero complaints. They are not cheap but if you are a cheap SOB don't be on something that is so visible on your car. Turnaround is never longer that a week including shipping.

I stitched up an Alan Gun padded wheel kit last week with what I think is an excellent result. But it wasn't easy and I can't say I recommend these kits. You can read the gory details here http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?s=&...t&p=2666914 and here is the end result.

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I have done 6 wheels through Dallas custom steering wheel. Perfect every time and takes about a week plus shipping. The company is a pleasure to work with and you get what you pay for. I do advise to be specific about what you want, Regular or thick wrap. painted? padding or no padding on spokes, spoke ends skived or cut flush, stitch pattern, etc. I've never had an issue but I write it ot on paper and don't assume they know what's in my head.

Another person who had bad lucky with the poor quality of the Alan Gunn kits.
I’ve used Autobahn Interiors for my wheels.
High quality with an acceptable price.

Happy to make stuff, but the kits are very labor intensive. Some folks should not be doing these and expecting professional results with ammeter labor. This is one of the reasons I have not done these.

It requires a higher level of skill, with a lot of patience and eye for detail. This is one there is no easy way to do these right. You see this part every time you drive the car, up close, and you know where the issues are.

Maybe Brent can do them for us, it looks really good. I tried this and lets just say I still have the old wheel on.

Thanks but.. HA! I'd rather be beaten with a sack full of quarters.

Actually, I think if you got a decent kit with holes that weren't punched by a drunken toddler, it would be a much more doable project. It requires time, patience, attention to detail, and good lighting, but pretty rewarding. As usual, I wouldn't have had the guts to try if others hadn't posted before with great results. @Montreal914 wrote a nice tutorial thread that was very helpful. On my kit, the holes punched around the spokes didn't look anything as nice as his though.

Update from my post above. I am now on my third leather from Alan. The first one was the wrong one. The second one he sent me was so far off two of the spoke sections wouldn’t even line up. The third one is the same. I was going to cut it down as the leather was very uneven and there was no thought put into locating the holes in the leather. I have the patience to do it but you have to have quality from the start. As somebody said above, at this point it’s going to go in the trash.

Very true, the material you start with has to be quality, still lots of work, but can be rewarding. More of a sense of accomplishment, but some sweat equity is good too.

Mike Fitton did a nice write-up on making his own wrap starting with a hide http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?s=&...t&p=2578742. I thought buying a kit would save time, but if I did it again, I'd probably follow his lead.

Just to give you guys an idea, this was the second cover. As you can see it was not symmetrical. The third one I have now is not as bad but still won't cover the spokes on one side. It also is different widths along both sides of the cut.