Auto Interiors & Tops

My headliner started to come undone on my VW, so I took it to Auto Interiors.
They booked me a couple weeks out, because they have been very busy this summer (2015). I dropped my car off on a Wednesday at 8am. I was told the service should take only one day. So, I went to pick it up Wednesday evening at 5pm and I paid for the service. Unfortunately, my car actually wasn’t ready and I had to return on Thursday to pick it up. This wasn’t a big deal for me, but they should have known that before I paid. I wish they had called me to let me know that it wouldn’t be ready till mid-​morning on Thursday. They were very apologetic and offered me a loaner car and a ride.
When I picked it up on Thursday, my luggage cover (i.e. the piece that covers the trunk area behind my back seats) was not in my car. After walking around the shop with an employee, we found it and everything was good.
Overall, my headliner is back to like-​new condition. This is a local business and everyone was very kind and professional. Despite the couple of issues I encountered, I’d still go back.

They replaced the fabric in the ceiling (or whatever you call it) of my car. Great service, nice people, reasonable cost. They have done other work for me in the past as well. Highly recommend.

Auto Interior & Tops did a great job recovering the headliner in my old Chrysler New Yorker, and for a very reasonable price. They were able to schedule an appointment quickly and they had the car in and out during the same workday. The headliner, which had developed a sag, now looks as good or better than when it left the factory, and I was out less than $ 200 — remarkable.

Very professional, very quick, pricing was reasonable. Fixed my broken sunroof

Run don’t walk from these guys. I took my 1999 911 Porsche convertible to Auto Interiors and Tops to replace the cloth top. I purchased a German Fabric top of the line top and they told me they would install it for me. They tout themselves as being «experts» on Porsche installs. Well apparently they let some novice install my top. When I got it home I noticed that there were huge gaps where the top meets the windows and if it ever rained I was going to get tons of rain in my interior. Also once i lowered the top it wouldn’t go back up. So I had to make sure there was no chance of rain when I took it to the Porsche dealership to have them see what was done wrong. Apparently AI&T had installed the top with many basic pieces missing. The Porsche service manager couldn’t believe they had sent the car out with such shoddy work. He said he used to recommend them for installs but after seeing the work they did on my car he would never recommend them again. Long story short I had the Porsche dealership do it right which cost me an arm and a leg. I was kind of stuck since my top wouldn’t even raise and lower.
Anyway…consider yourself warned. They are horrible. Don’t take the chance.

I went to Auto Interiors & Tops, Inc., with an unorthodox request: they they make me some 10′ x 10′ black canvas backdrops with 25 metal grommets across the top like the ones I use in the part of my book publishing job where I’m a traveling bookseller at academic conferences and trade shows. Nothing to do with auto interiors. Or tops. And yet they were able to accommodate my special needs, and I am grateful for it.
The place is located in downtown Raleigh, near Natty Greene’s and Napper Tandy’s, etc., and is essentially a big garage where they do precisely what the aptly named business suggests: they reupholster car interiors and tops. Go figure. I brought in one of my existing canvas backdrops and worked first with Tim, and later with Travis — both of whom are just as pleasant as can be — to recreate the blasted things, and both were eager to help me with my bizarre demands.
The Sunbrella fabric they used is stiffer than the fabric the boating company that made our original backdrops, and the black color is rich and dark and a near-​perfect match to the originals. I haven’t tried the new ones out at an exhibit, but I think I won’t be able to mix them with the old ones, because they’ll look different side-​by-​side. However, when paired just by themselves, I think they’ll look great, although perhaps they won’t drape quite as nicely as the old ones. They are tough and well made, though, so I know I’ll get years of use out of them.
Initially, they ordered only enough fabric to make the backdrops 7′ long, but it’s imperative to have them 8′, so they had to order more as a not insignificant cost. However, the company did call me before they did so to let me know that there would be an additional charge, at which point I ordered a third backdrop, because one of the old ones became a casualty of BookExpo America: separated from the other boxes in our return shipment and I imagine abandoned forever in a dusty, lonely UPS warehouse somewhere (moment of silence).
(Be honest: my job description is boring the shite out of you right now, isn’t it? Hey, but you know, I get to travel to some kickass places for it. Toronto and New Orleans this fall, Los Angeles in January [suck it, cold weather!], New York City in February [yeeeeeah, I’mma freeze my bohonkus off] and Honolulu in March [I’ll be conducting business from the beach, TYVM: Mai Tais for life!].)
But I digress. In sum, I am beyond pleased with the customer service I received from Auto Interiors & Tops and I appreciate their willingness to help an exhibits manager out. (Don’t lie: you yawned when I mentioned my job title, didn’t you? You are just, like, so bored right now.) The receptionists are friendly and helpful and the guys doing the upholstering are great about giving you updates and super-​quick to return your calls. I also want to mention here that they finished all three backdrops almost an entire month before I said I needed them (!). They also were kind enough to UPS them to me, since it would’ve been a bit of an inconvenience for me to trek out there during work. I’ll have to post a follow up when I actually put them the backdrops to use this fall, but I’m confident that they’ll be just swell.