Let me tell my long story about Rough Country (RC) seat covers on a 2024 Lariat with leather seats.
I installed the RC neoprene seat covers on the weekend as we finally had a reprieve from the frozen tundra in the Great White North. Yes, I have a garage, but it is not heated, so why bother.
Here’s my early layman’s review of the RC covers, including price, shipping, installation, fit and quality. Hopefully this helps for anyone considering the RC covers.
Before the “why would you have beautiful leather seats that you are covering up and will never enjoy" lurkers chime in, first understand that I am going to put my little Ranger to “WORK", so it can earn its keep, so I wanna protect it as much as I realistically can, before I drive off into my retirement sunset and enjoy this wee beast in all of its natural beauty.
I did not desire high-end covers, just wanted some slips that protect my investment and still look good, so I opted for the RC neoprene as they looked pretty good in photos, like all them Plenty of Fish dates that catfished me. Actual photos of the seat covers, not the POF scammers, shown below.
Firstly, the price was good for my needs, about $300 Cdn ($230 US). I know you can easily spend double that price and maybe a bit less for some dish rags on Amazon, but I wanted something that offered protection at a reasonable price, but still looked good.
Shipping was pretty quick to Canada, about 10 days after I pulled the trigger and busted out the credit card for a wonderful old-school tariff-free experience. Love buying things from the U.S., never disappointed. I sure hope this does not change! Can you hear me Donald?
So, here they are, now what? I grabbed some popcorn and watched a couple videos on the Tube and felt ready to tame the neoprene beast, my way, of course.
Front backrest covers pulled on nicely, like my tighty whities on a frosty mornin', and the front bottoms were easy enough to yank on as well, with little resistance. Note that the backrest and bottom is all one piece, with a gaping opening in the middle, not separate pieces, which is a great design. Wish they made my cloths that way, getting dressed would be so much easier and faster.
CONCERN #1: Will my new RC seat covers catch fire when my bun warmers are running at full tilt? Some people have expressed concerns with this, so I checked in with RC’s braintrust and they called me down from the worrier’s ledge and said the covers are fine when installed on the heated seats. Whew! Thought I would have to return the truck.
INSTALLATION TIP #1: Make sure you have the front backrest covers with the open areas on the edges facing the same way as the air bag tags on your front seats — facing the doors on each side.
OK. This was the easy part. Pulling the covers on. Feeding the front straps under the seats towards the back: CHECK! As long as you don’t have gorilla mitts (big hands). If you do, hire a kid to help fish them straps under the seats. Does not count as child labour if you don’t yell and you pay them well.
Now for the fun part. You need to first unhook the straps that hold the flap behind the existing leather seat backs so you can run the new seat cover back straps from the backrests down behind and below the seat and hook up under the seat.
It seemed so easy, what could go wrong? Well, let me tell you, I moaned and groaned for an eternity, with the back door threshold sticking into my kidneys, my back screaming in pain, all in vain as I tried every way possible to feel around for how to unhook those two straps from that forbidden dark and secret area under the seat. It was a flashback to the first time I tried to undo a bra strap in junior high school, but I digress. I was unsuccessful then, as now, my strap skills have failed me again. So, like any good surgeon, I needed to send in the scope to see what I was dealing with. I turned on my iPhone’s video camera and laid it down and slid it under the back of the seat to see what nemesis I had encountered.
And there it was, the strap was hooked nicely on a plastic tab, but there was the electric wire and clip preventing me from unclipping the strap. Damn you Ford! Now what? My sore ragged knuckles had a brilliant suggestion. Remove the seat. Where were you when I needed you earlier Knuckles?
So, out came the socket wrench. Moved the seat forward all the way to access two bolts holding the seat to the frame. Then moved the seat all the way back, used my trim tool (gotta get a set of these for so many reasons) to pop off the two front flat panel covers to reveal those two front bolts. With the bolts off, it was super easy to tip the seat forward and backwards and there I had it, I had revealed the maze of spaghetti, wires, connectors and electronics for power and heated seats, etc. Nobody can stop me now!
INSTALLATION TIP #2: When you remove the seat bolts on the front, there is a long plastic tab, like a dowel, that is used to align the seats when you bolt them to the frame. Those long tabs are very destructive, pointy on the bottom, so cover them with something like a rag or a piece of a pool noodle (is there anything a pool noodle can’t do? I have used pool noodles to solve so many problems.). If you miss this part, prepare shed some tears as those tabs will damage your carpet or scratch the door threshold while you merrily shift the seat around to get your straps on — that was ’Straps On’, not ’Strap On’).
So, with the seat bottom accessible, the planets aligned, the straps were so easy to connect and tighten and for a moment, the heart rate dropped, the agony of defeat was replaced by the thrill of victory — stole this from the old “ABC’s Wide World of Sports”.
OK, front covers done, seats bolted back on and you know, they look pretty damn good. Better than I expected. Feel good too. The Ranger seats have a bit of a comfort reputation and the neoprene allows you to experience every curve and groove, sort of like Spandex.
MANUFACTURING SUGGESTION: Somebody else suggested this as well, and I agree. The three long under-seat front clip strips that run from front to back should be reversed and run from back, so when you clip and pull the straps you are pulling from front to back.
Feeling full of myself and my installation skills, I did not stop for a drink, I just dove in the back seat and began pulling and tugging, ‘on the seat covers’.
I have to say that experience was so much more pleasant as the bench seat bottom flips up with the pull on the tab on the driver’s side and the back flips forward with the pull on the passenger’s side tab, both giving you easy access to everything you need. After some tucking and fiddling and a wee bit of profanity, the back covers were on.
Now for the headrests. Decided to save those and do them all at once.
I knocked off the four larger headrests. Front and back. Man those covers were tighter than my sweat pants after my third buffet. Patience and lots of pulling and eventually the velcro finally reached. Done.
Hold on, not quite, I still had the little mini head rest for the people with tiny heads who sit in the middle back seat; that person nobody likes so they get no leg room and they are often the first person to shoot out the front window in a head on collision. Sorry!
OK that headrest is smaller so we can keep a closer eye on tailgaters in the rearview mirror and not have some gigantic headrest blocking our view.
Back to the middle headrest cover. “What was RC thinking?" That cover will never fit that headrest unless you just slip it on the top and don’t bother attaching it. I guess it sort of works, kinda like your favourite dress jacket that you can no longer fasten up due to too many buffets, so you just let the gates swing open and hope your tie covers any button mishaps or spaghetti stains.
Luckily, RC sent me two extra rear headrest covers, with holes in the sides. Not sure why or what those are for, but thank you!
Thankfully, I was able to replace the beany cover, RC sent for that middle headrest, with one of the extra ones they sent. It was too large, but better looking than the beans cover once I pulled it on and tucked the extra ugliness under the headrest, like my hair under my ball cap on a no-shower day for a Walmart run.
OK, last bit, I promise. The back armrest in the middle seat was a challenge and in the end, I kind of hated the result. No matter how I installed it, it ended up looking like shite. The main backrest cover tucks behind the armrest and another separate cover fits over the armrest. I fought valiantly to pull it on properly and make it look the way it should, but I ended up with a neoprene abortion.
No matter how I tried to make it right, like a bad marriage, it was always going to be a disaster. The pictures tell the story. SO, I may take another run at it when I recover from my installation therapy, as maybe I just did it all wrong, but for now I think I might just remove that armrest cover and leave that leather piece in all of its glory, a shining example of leaving things au natural. The naked armrest may win in the end. A reminder of what lies beneath.
WHAT I LIKE: Front seat covers fit quite nicely, when you take the seats off and install them straps the way they were meant to be in their pure state of happiness. Pretty happy with the neoprene material too. It seems rather durable, but time will tell.
WHAT CAN BE IMPROVED: Front seat straps, switch them please. Back seat bench cover seems a bit too short. Could be deeper (longer). Kind of fits like my T-shirts that leave a bit of belly sticking out in the areas that should be covered. They cover seems to not stick far enough into the seat crack. Finally, make that middle headrest cover bigger.
INSTALLATION TIME: If you remove the seats, you should be able to get ‘er done in one to two hours and still have some quiet time in your man cave.
OVERALL: I think these are pretty decent seat covers. Hell, I have seen photos of some that are twice the price and they look like a Shar Pei sleeping on the seat. They don’t fit tight enough and have more bags and sags than my eyelids.
Hope you enjoy reading this, tongue in cheek, more than I enjoyed installing them. You live and you learn.
CHEERS!
