oCarbon

Hey guys,

My name is Matt and I'm the owner of oCarbon. We've been hand making real carbon fiber interior trim sets for high end European vehicles for the last 9 years (mostly Audis and BMWs) and are now looking to offer our services to Mercedes owners.

We need to find a few W212 owners who'd like to have some carbon fiber interior trim made for their vehicles. We'd be able to offer a pretty significant discount to anyone willing to send us their trim for a few weeks while we manufacture a set for them.

These sets would be made using actual carbon fiber, epoxy, and clearcoat (no fake vinyl or stickers or anything else of that nature) wrapped over an OEM set of trim for a perfect OEM fit. Different fabric weaves and colors are available for a more custom look.

Our standard pricing on these sets will be very competitive, and those that take advantage of this introductory offer will get heavily discounted sets.

Interested? Shoot an email to matt@ocarbon.com with your full vehicle info (model, year, chasis code, auto/manual, what type of trim is currently in the vehicle) along with what you'd be interested in. If you've got good photography skills and are willing to help us with installed pictures and/or an install guide, this would be appreciated as well.

Check out some of the vehicles we've done in our gallery: ocarbon.com/gallery

See some of the more custom pieces we've done in our blog: http://ocarbon.com/blog

Few pictures of recent sets:








Frequently asked questions

Q: Can you give me a little more info about the process?

A: Sure. You'd remove your current trim and ship it to us. We would take the original trim, remove excess material, wrap it with real carbon fiber, coat it with epoxy, sand it smooth, spray it with clearcoat, and buff it to a shine. The whole process takes about 3-4 weeks, and we'd then return the set back to you.

Q: So you won't be making molded pieces?

A: Nope. We've found that molded interior trim pieces never really fit right and they don't look as good as overlaid parts. Using an original OEM piece as a base means all the OEM tabs for a perfect fit.

Q: What about the added carbon? Won't that make the pieces bigger?

A: No. We sand down wood cores and we remove the aluminum from aluminum cores to make room for the extra carbon fiber and epoxy. We rarely have any fit issues with pieces, and we guarantee fitment, so if for some reason something doesn't fit quite right, we'll fix it until it does.

Q: Where are these pieces made? I'm worried about quality from overseas companies.

A: Everything is made in house in our facility in Glendale, AZ. We control the process from start to finish. It costs more, but the end quality is much, much higher.

Q: Speaking of quality, can you give me more info about the materials you use?

A: Most companies use a cheap 5.7oz 2x2 twill fabric for their parts. This fabric has gaps in the weave and can be susceptible to weave distortion around complex corners. We only use name brand (mostly Japanese based Toray) 11oz 2x2 twill, that has a much thicker and tighter weave. Again, it costs more, but it makes a huge difference in how the end product works. We also use only the highest end epoxies that have UV inhibitors to prohibit fading and yellowing. We finish the pieces in high-solids polyurethane clearcoat for a deep, glossy shine.

Q: Since I'm helping you out with development, shouldn't these sets be super cheap or free for me?

A: We're a small company, just myself and a few employees. We'd love to be able to just give the first few sets away, but we don't have a ton of capital to be able to develop a bunch of new products, so we're asking a few of you to share the cost of development with us. You'll get a fantastic set of real carbon fiber trim for your vehicle, at 20-40% of the cost of some of our competitors. It's a win-win for both of us.

Q: What about a warranty?

A: We offer a full, one year warranty on every product we sell, even these development products.

Q: Can you make other interior parts? Exterior parts?

A: Probably. We're focusing on interior trim parts for now, and might be open to simple overlaid exterior parts. Email us if you'd like a quote.

Q: You didn't answer a question I had.

A: Shoot an email to matt@ocarbon.com and I'll do my best to help you.

oCarbon

I added an FAQ to the original post.

neverlose

I might be up for it. So do your customers typically just ride around trimless for a month?

oCarbon

No. Once we get these Benz sets figured out we'll get a few extra sets of core trim and do a core deposit system.

oCarbon

Lots of interest, but no one has pulled the trigger yet. I might be willing to lower the price a little bit for those who want to be daring and get a custom fabric (silver, red, blue, or one of the custom black weaves).

Shoot me an email at matt@ocarbon.com if you'd like to set something up.

neverlose

I'd do it if I didn't have to drive around without trim for the month and take it to my indy shop twice.. once to have the old trim removed and again to have it the carbon trim reinstalled.

For the price I'd rather just wait for you to do your r&d and pay full price later and then only have to make one trip to the indy shop.

oCarbon

We'll still need cores at a later date, which for these E classes will probably be pretty expensive since thy are so new and the sets are so large.

Hopefully we'll be able to do a core deposit, but I'll have to find some extra used sets.

oCarbon

We got our first W212 core in today. Still need to figure out how to remove the center console, but we should have that figured out in the next couple dates.

I was a little surprised to see that the wood trim was actually plastic, especially considering the wood trim on the W211 was real wood.

I'll keep this thread updated as we continue working on the trim.

K-A

Is the wood inside the plastic not real wood? I couldn't imagine M-B would put fake wood in a car. The W211's looks less plastic but I believe it's a similar laminate style, just more genuine looking?

oCarbon

The W211 is real wood, I've sanded it down. But it has a metal backing. We haven't sanded down these W212 pieces yet, but in all my years doing this, I've never seen a set of real wood trim with a plastic backing.

oCarbon

I stand corrected. Looks like it is a real wood, just manufactured differently. We've got this set stripped down and will start getting carbon on it today.

GoBlando

What did you use to strip the finish off?

oCarbon

Chisel and a belt sander. It does not come off easy and took quite a bit of work.

sleewell

if i had settled on the brown wood trim and not the grey i would have been all over this. looks great guys!!

oCarbon

Made progress on this set this week. Fabric is on, epoxy will be added over the next few days:

eNNCity

awesome thread. Can't wait to see the final result installed! I really like the work you did on my audi and it's been holding up well for years

oCarbon

Awesome. Glad to hear they still look great after all this time. We use super premium epoxy, so they shouldn't yellow or fade for a long, long time.


Some progress on the W212 pieces. After this epoxy is cured, we'll get these pieces sanded smooth and ready for clearcoat.

oCarbon

Set has been clearcoated. A few teaser photos, I'll have more pictures of the full set in the next couple days.

oCarbon

Few more pics of all the W212 pieces. We just need to let these cure a little bit more and we can start reaffixing all the chrome pieces. There are a few specs of dust in the clear, but those will polish out very easily for a mirror finish.

Won't be much longer before we can get them installed and get some installed pictures.

oCarbon

Got the first W212 set installed. A few small pieces need some minor adjustments to fit correctly, but the majority of the set fit perfectly and looks amazing.

Pictures of the set before the install:






Getting the door pieces back together:











Getting everything buttoned up:








Few pics in the sun:







Still need to finish up the last two pieces for the center console:

oCarbon

Still looking for W212 owners who want a discounted set of interior trim. Email me at matt@ocarbon.com if you'd like a quote.

will175

Matt..Whats up bud..This is Will from back in the day. I was one of your first customers with the B5 S4..Glad your still up and going. Ill see if one of my customers is up for this. You making anything for the 2012 CLS63? :-)

Aloha,
Will

oCarbon

Hey Will!

Shoot me an email, I'll get you a special quote.

xolinlevh

Looks awesome!

oCarbon

Thanks!