Review of Rottec CGT seats.
 

I recently ordered a set of Rottec Carrera GT style (sCGT) seats. Upgrades on my set included carbon kevlar shells and alcantara cushions. The other upholstery is the standard leatherette.

Pros: I am really impressed with the carbon work. The shell feels very strong, the weave is uniform, and the resin is glossy and clear.
The padding isn't that thick but the seat is shaped just right so you're not putting too much pressure on any one part of your back or legs.
The leatherette is actually nice and soft. If you pinch it you can tell it is thin and not real leather but if you just caress it it feels softer than many real leathers.
Ray was easy to deal with and generally answered emails in a timely fashion.

Cons: I'm not that impressed with the rails. This is my first foray into aftermarket seats so I'm not sure if it's normal or not. It's not a problem with the adjuster as that engages confidently. The base metal just has some flex in it. I may break out the welder and attempt to strengthen these pieces.
I'm mixed on the silver plastic seatbelt holes. Sometimes they look cool but sometimes they look cheap compared to the rest of the car. They offer carbon pieces as an option which might be worth it for some. I tried covering with brushed aluminum wrap but the piece was too deeply contoured. I may just try plastidip (though I hate this craze) and see if just making them black and more subtle works better. Or I may do nothing because it's not a big deal.
It took a week to ship even though the seats were on hand.

In summary I am very happy with my purchase. It makes driving the car feel totally different. I lost about 80 pounds by swapping in these seats and removing the rear seats. These seats weigh 26 pounds a piece.

I think the price isn't bad. I would probably pay more for higher quality rails. I think Rottec would benefit from sourcing some for future seats. Although my seats arrived undamaged I would also recommend they use more bubble wrap on the rails so they don't poke through the box.

Keep in mind, these seats are TIGHT. I wear a size 32 pants and have a fit build. They are just right for me. If you are a bigger guy you'll want to look into one of their other designs.

(Feel free to make fun of the horrible green carpet. It's getting ripped out soon.)
https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/...ine=1372128016
https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/...ine=1372128016

I hope you enjoy them more than I did - thought they were garbage and immediately removed them from my car.

Wow. What didn't you like about them and what did you replace them with?

Since the seats and especially seat mounting rails/brackets are an integral part of the crash worthiness of a vehicle, I would think looooooong and hard before installing some Chinese make products which were never tested to any crash standards. Seats are not one place to try to save a few dollars when your life (or the life of a loved one) is potentially on the line. In our cars the seat belt buckle is mounted to the seat itself and thus the seat rail are what takes all the force in a crash and what keeps you restrained in your seat. If your Chinese seat rail fails in a crash, you will go flying in your nice shiny carbon fibre replica seat. Just something to think about.... At least with the factory Porsche GT3 Euro seats, you know they were subjected to strict European and DOT crash standards (for those seat offered here in the US). Good luck.....

if you talk to quality race shops like GMG they will tell you no part of any restraint system should ever be secured to the seat itself. always wondered about the catch being mounted to the seat. even my nissan pickup has the seat belts mounted to the floor not the seat

Are you sure about that? I think the GT3 and GT3RS are exempt from crash tests due to the limited production numbers.

I agree with you. That make sense but I'm sure a multi billion dollar company like Porsche that is subject to strict world wide crash standards has much more access to testing and crashworthiness data than GMG or any other race shop around. I presume that Porsche mounts the seat belt receptacle to the seat so that the seatbelt remains in perfect alignment relative to the seat occupant irrespective of the position of the seat itself along it's seat rail. It's different in race cars as the seat is generally bolted to the floor without any adjusters or the adjustment range is very limited so the harness can be bolted the the chassis in a specific location. No matter what, in Porsche's street cars, the seat rail carries a huge importance in a crash and I personally wouldn't trust my life to some product made in a Chinese sweat shop and sold though Alibaba for a few pennies. But that's just me.....

The GT3/RS are not that limited. There have been over 5200 GT3 and RS cars produced word wide with large majority of that sold here in the US. And yes, I'm pretty certain all cars sold in the US have to meet US crashworthiness standards. I know that the 996 Euro GT3 seats were not offered as an option on the cars in the US because they were not tested by the DOT and thus could not be sold here. They were however tested to meet European crash standards and that is enough for me as those are generally stricter anyway. No matter what, I myself feel much safer in a 200mph car knowing the seat and rails were make by Porsche rather than a sweatshop worker in Guangzhau.

The seats look nice and improve the aesthetics of your interior. But you mentioned your mounting brackets on the base flex? I guess I'm just not comfortable with non FIA or Chinese aftermarket race seats that are installed in modified high performance vehicles.

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/216238444/Car_Carbon_Racing_Tuning_Seat_for.html

Well, they are limited enough that the NHTSA and any state or federal DOT has never crashed tested a Porsche. Porsche has to certify the cars meet the standards. Pretty interesting. At any rate, I agree with you.

What do you guys think of the Corbeau seat brackets?

Or has anyone heard of Wedge? These look like they would raise the seat up higher than stock.

http://wedgebrackets.com/brackets/po...-brackets.html

I can't speak on the wedge or corbeau bases for a 996, but I've used the corbeaus, wedges and recaro's in my supra, my STI, and my GTR and the recaros were nice, but honestly the corbeau's were the best to an extent. Most of the brackets require some modification to get the seat to sit at stock or lower level, the corbeaus were pretty easy to modify, the wedges needed more than just the height adjusted on one bracket (had to change the location of the anchor bolt hole as it was off by a bit) and the recaros were just finicky. I've found that unless you do a fixed back seat or go with Bride low/extralow rails it's hard to get the seat to sit lower than stock. In any case from the sounds of the RoTec brackets, I'd take any other rails and use them.

In a crash if the rails break your face is hitting the steering wheel. If your face hits the steering wheel you'll wish you were dead. Can't say id ever run aftermarket seat rails in a car unless they came from a huge manufacturer who builds SFI parts certified for competition.

I purchased a set of Porsche OEM GT3 seats several years ago. They were on back order and the vendor sent me the import GT3 carbon fiber seats to use until the OEM's arrived. I just could not get past the brackets. After installing them, I promptly removed them, as I felt they were totally unsafe - you could see the metal flex and my better judgement told me to remove them for safety sake.

When my OEM seats arrived with the OEM Recaro brackets, the metal was about 1/4 thick! They appear much thicker than even the BK GT3 seat bracket I have seen and the mounts on the seats themselves seemed more more secure - the import seats are nothing like OEM Recaro's and personally I would never consider using the imports. Unfortunately, I am afraid that sooner or later we will probably hear of a failed import GT3 seat.

I have a Savannah Beige Interior and finding replacement seats is tough. I ended up replacing them with Sparco's and Brey Kraus sliders and mounts. I ended up putting in my stock savannah beige seats for the street and will live with them until I can get the SB seats from Porsche (CGT). I will save my Sparco's for my track car I will be building soon - they are not good on a daily basis for the street.

Pics of the Sparco's Installed

As for the Rottec seats...

I custom ordered real Savannah Beige Leather which delayed the shipment for two weeks + and the seats arrived with synthetic leather that did not match. The seat construction is so piss poor I never got past installing them because they flexed and squeaked so much. The fit and finish was horrible and the padding was not even under the surface. I would not trust those seats in a high speed or low speed crash, especially the quality of how they bolt in. I was extremely pi$$ed with the overall experience, especially about fake leather. More importantly, the integrity of the seats are not what I expected.

I have OMP race seats in my Cup car, Sparco's, and have had Recaro's. Trust me, the Rottec seats are crap. I opted to stick with my oem seats as they are far superior in comfort and build quality and plenty good enough for the street.

Your leather situation definitely sucks. I bought these with the intention that if I wanted them to look good I would be getting the leather work done locally.

I can't say the amount of flex the seats have bothers me. The OEM seats have flex and I have found it to be close enough. The squeaking is mostly in the trim pieces for the harnesses up top. I'm going to try to figure something out with that.

When it comes down to it the real deal seats are something like $10k. I hope you weren't expecting the Rottecs to be as good. For the price they pretty much met my expectations. The leatherette actually exceeded my expectations, but I had low expectations for that. I trust the seat shell in a crash but also purchased them not expecting the rails to be very good... and they will probably get replaced. Once I upgrade the rails I will be pretty confident in them.

I paid close to $3000 everything included. I can get the the real Savannah Beige Leather GT3 seats from Porsche for around $5000, so I have personally decided to go the correct route and dish out the extra money when the time comes.

My seats looked like $**** and the vinyl smelled horrible - they really stuck out from the rest of my leather interior. The vinyl work in my dad's old Pinto was much higher quality - I am not exaggerating. The most important thing to me was how much the seats flexed and sounded like they were going to break - more important than how they looked.

Rottec Savannah Beige Seats in a 2001 911 Turbo

sinKing I have the same seats as you but haven't installed them. If you find another bracket that is stronger and works let us know!

Ya sinking if you find better rails let us know, I too have similar seats, I also was happy with the quality vs price and I did opt for carbon loops in top of seat which looks great! padding is satisfactory to me.

slightly off topic but related. i had a set of cgt seats like these with the recline option. purchased in feb and set them next to the rottecs and you wont find any difference in the seats. company has them made in taiwan.

less than 5 months and 3000 miles on them the drivers seat has broken at the lower outside main bolt support. felt the seat sway in a turn and upon inspection found the bracket tilted towards the back. thought i needed better seat brackets. notice how the nut doesnt even have a larger washer against the fiberglass
removed the outer cover and the foam and found the massive crack. no metal to fiberglass support at all. frame bolted to the glass and thats it. the fixed back seats may be a bit stronger but i would be hesitant to put any of thses seats in my car now. im waiting on warranty from the seller but am hoping for a simple refund and move on.
just to be clear mine werent rottec seats. imo its unlikely there are many manufacturers in taiwan building these. most likely 1 factory and many buyers buying the same product
https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/...ine=1373395664

I know money is important but it is beyond me why anyone would buy a seat without a great track record I would just as soon stick with oem even if that meant no track time.

Thanks for the heads up. That nut's going to be putting some serious stresses on the seat. I'll see if mine have any washers to spread out the force.

Looks like even OEM Ferrari Carbon seats risk cracking under normal use.

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/tec...iber-seat.html
http://www.tifosichat.com/forum/tech...er-seat-2.html

I know a guy who worked at NASA in composites. Maybe I'll send him some pictures and get his opinion. Do you have any more pictures of your seat failure, 32Krazy?

Ya 32krazy where exactly is that nut located on the seat? do you have more pics? as I might try fit a washer there too

thing is these are reclining seats. theres a large cover over the recline knob and hardware on the out side. this bolt is what the side mounts are attached to the seat so they can be attached to the sliders if that makes any sense. as you climb into the seat you invariably lean back into the backrest to avoid wearing the high side bolster on the outside of the seat. this is what i believe lead to the failure. remember my seats were new in feb and i have MAYBE 3000 miles on them!

no other pics unless the seller wants me to rip the covers off and shoot pics from the outside but i can tell you the fiberglass is broken and frayed all the way thru. if i put any pressure on the back of the seat i can open the gap by over 1"

just wanted those with these tawain made seats to be aware. your fixed back seat may fair better but i would really go over them and get rid of the spacer between the seat mounts and the sliders. i think this also added to the stress

That was one reason I went with fixed backs. I didn't want to trust aftermarket seat back adjusters. I'm definitely going to go over the bolts that mount the shell to the brackets. It doesn't matter how good the carbon is, if it starts getting nicked there, there will be problems.

I'm thinking bonding washers directly to the shell to make sure they don't ever rotate or move is the way to go.

IMO, all of these Chinese/Taiwanese made imitation/wannabe/replica seats belong in your office or workshop and not a high performance car capable of 200+ mph. Not only do you compromise your own safety but that of others when that super duper fake seat collapses in a high G turn and causes you to loose control of your car. It amazes me how many people are willing to put untested safety critical items like seats in their car just to get the "cool" look without any concern for safety. Sort of like wearing a fake Rolex except that won't kill you. Plus there is the liability exposure if you were involved in an accident involving bodily harm. In our litigious society, an attorney would have a field day with your replica seat. Sorry guys, just my opinion.

Sent an email off to NASA composites guy.

32Krazy, I see fiberglass strands on yours. What construction was yours advertised as being?

My thoughts, exactly! IMO, use OEM Porsche/Recaro or leave the seats alone...

fiberglass. sent pics off to the seller waiting to hear back on the warranty

Expert composites guy taught me a few things about how the composite would fail and what I could do about it. Basically, I was on the right track with bonding the washers but he gave me some important tips I never would have realized. I'm going to get these seats to where I am much more comfortable using them.

Geez an alarming call to those looking at picking up RotTEC seats. The flexing of the rails just doesn't sound right. I was actually looking into it for my MINI. Anyway I put in a set of OEM 997 Sports Seats in my 996TT, they feel so damn good and I feel safe. I hope you get your issues figured out on your seats.