hi i was thining of striping out the interior of my car for weight reduction and was thining first off yeah take the rear seats out and dor cards but if i take door cards out how can i keep handles ect?

how much weight can u expect to loose and what is involved in this.

also if i take out the rear seats will this void my insurance as the number of seats would have decreased form 5 to 2.

if anyone has done this just some pointers of ups and downs would be nice because I'm split 50/50 if to do it and are the benifits worth it?

.cheers .mark

At the end of the day mate, no disrespect (i have one), its a valver, not a performance car. Stripping the interior will make minimal difference and i don't think anyone would bother unless they were heavily modding the engine and putting it round the track. Just my opinion though.

Sound deadening is proper heavy stuff. Out of all the stuff I took out of mine that was the most surprisingly heavy.

Obviously doing this does reduce a reasonable amount of weight if you take the seats and that out as well but it does make the car a whole lot noisier.

If you don't really use your rear seats (like me) then I can't really see any harm in removing them. But if you use them often then I wouldn't bother as it doesn't make a HUGE amount of difference. I just did it mostly for load space, means I could fit more crap in it

i fold my rear seats down, thus lowering the CG i.e. laying down on a frozne pond - reducing the weight.

you could also try only driving with a quarter of a tank of fuel.

another option is if you polish your car it actually lowers the wind resistance..

easiest one. diet.

To be honest, modern cars are inherently heavy (crash protection, power this and that), losing the interior probably isn't going to make much difference.

i fold my rear seats down, thus lowering the CG i.e. laying down on a frozne pond - reducing the weight.

you could also try only driving with a quarter of a tank of fuel.

another option is if you polish your car it actually lowers the wind resistance..

Thought that only worked for Corsa's

i definately noticed a difference removing the rear seats out of my g40, sat about an inch higher at the back and seemed lighter on the rear end

seemed lighter on the rear end

Good thing in a G???

there really no point unless your going to trash it around a track then yeah get revery unnessery thing out

but drinving daily and cruisin about then leave in

and if u do strip it think of all the rattles and noises you well get from something

my dad owns a triumph stag with a rover 4lt v8 with a 450 carb pancake filter fast as f**k

every so often we take it to caslte comb days and we strip every thing soft top comes of

that got to be 25 kgs back seats 10 at lest

and lots of little things and

you can tell the differne

I've ditched the back seats out of mine and i really noticed a difference! not a huge one admittedly, but the car deff feels lighter and a bit more nimble.

am considering binning the rest of the interior too now...

at the end of the day loosing weight means a better power to weight ratio, which means more fun!

all depends what you want from the car really, if you want it to be a comfy cruiser then leave it all in.

If you do it properly it will be horrible to live with everyday. And unless you go all the way you aren't going to feel the benefits either.

Remove the rear seats in a mk2 and you might just feel the difference. Remove the rear seats in a 6n and theres no chance.

probably the main reason i have to drive mine with my intercoms on if i go further than about a mile

the rear of my gt is totally stripped out noticed a minor difference and alot mor noise........

My 205 is absolutely stripped out:

even the door cards have gone now. The road noise is absolutely horrendous! Its like a tin can, echoes like anything.

^ thats where ear plugs AND defenders come in handy

My 205 is absolutely stripped out:

even the door cards have gone now. The road noise is absolutely horrendous! Its like a tin can, echoes like anything.

i had a 205 1.4 xt just like that! they are realy noisy!

i've removed rear cards, seats, carpet and its noisy but you can live with it "just turn stereo up" I'm removing my front carpets and sound deadening and rplacing with acoustic carpet as it weighs naff all.

in theory stripping it out should increas power to wieght ratio/ improve fuel consumption/ acceleration/ handling.

down sides are cold!!!! noisy!!!! and you get paranoid about noises!

rob.

if you strip it out properly, as in remove everything except driver's seat, steering wheel, gear lever, pedals and some way of opening the doors (including all the sound deadening stuff) then it'll make a difference. If all you are doing is chucking out the rear seats then it's a waste of time, they weigh bugger all anyway.

My g40 interior is basically the same as this now but with two bucket seats and part of the dash board back in. Plus the inside was painted too!

is that a track car mate cz i can see a bias adjuster? what ever it is it looks like a quality cage!

It's my g40 about a year or so ago. I am going to be using it for track days, yes.

I stripped the rear of my polo out completely and sprayed the inside .

It made a cracking diffrence with the handling making the car alot nippier around the corners .

I removed alot of weight though no rear door cards no stereo system ie Subwoofer 6X9's no rear seats / seatbelts parcel shelf attachments .

It was noisey yes but thats all in the fun . You could hear the fumes passing throught the exhaust pipe a slight wirring noise i thaught it was exalent .

Here is a piccy of mine stripped from rear seats back ..

I left everything in the front just sprayed everything in the back clack to match the interior .

yeah, its probably easier not eating than trying to save a few pounds by removing seats and shelves. I think the best thing is to remove the sound proof lining, then refitting the carpet as carpet weighs sod all. obvioulsy polishing makes a great difference, and dont forget to fold the mirrors in to reduce harsh drag.....

Edited 3 January, 200818 yr by mathew

in a mk3, the rear seat assembly is about 24kg

didnt realise it was that much, i never bothered with stripping seats from road cars. I always though in the scheme of things it wouldnt make much difference to a standard car.... i mean considering when most people strip out rear benches they end up fitting massive speaker enclosures which must way more.

didnt realise it was that much, i never bothered with stripping seats from road cars. I always though in the scheme of things it wouldnt make much difference to a standard car.... i mean considering when most people strip out rear benches they end up fitting massive speaker enclosures which must way more.

I dont understand that .. Why would you strip out the seats and seatbelts which weigh the most you should feel how heavy the seatbelts are and then fill the back with loads of stereo equiptment ..

It would only take you 30 mins to get the whole of the rear stripped out inc seats seatbelts doorcards spare wheel ect .

Take em out drive the car and see iff you feel a difrence i found it was remarkable as believed there would be absolutly no change .

Its an excuse to give the interior a imaclute clean too . take everything out then put it back in .. On a Mk3 polo takes no time at all .