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 W251 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: http://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.

vwfreak

I love Q&A 1 and 2!

So let me get this straight. I take off all my trim, send it off to you for a month, you then you sand it down and ruin all of my very beautiful and expensive real wood Mercedes trim peices, you cover it in carbon fiber, then send it back to me and I HAVE to like your quaility because my once beautiful wood trim is now under your GOD KNOWS WHAT product that I still had to PAY for!
I have to say... NO THANKS!

BTW Your process isn't helping you develop anything... Go find a Honda to practice on!

oCarbon

Not sure why the hostility. We're offering a service at a very good price that quite a few people are interested in. It's cool you like your wood trim, but not everyone does.

vwfreak

What you should do is use the wood as a mold and learn how to measure where the atachment tabs go. That way the customer can get the wood back and have a carbon set too. You could then copy the mold and sell make several sets to sell to all. I'm not willing to sacrifice my wood trim and if it dosnt fit or I don't like it, I'm out of luck and I still had to pay you. What is your prices anyway?

vwfreak

Also your title sounds like your looking for a few
R-class owners to help you develop a prototype. But that is not the case at all.

oCarbon

This is the way cheap Chinese companies manufacture carbon fiber trim. They don't fit correctly and the quality is low. This is why we manufacture these pieces the same way the OEM carbon pieces are, as an overlay, with the correct OEM tabs and an OEM fit.

We rarely have any complaints about fit (and when we do, we correct it).

We're aren't trying to develop a "prototype." We've got the manufacturing process down, as we've been doing this for almost 10 years now, and it's all we do. We're looking for a few members so we can get good installed pictures on new models we haven't done yet (hopefully with a few different fabric options). Additionally, giving a few people a discount to take the plunge and try us out, can provide feedback to other members about the quality of our products.

need4spd

Do you charge per piece or whole interior kit (wood pieces), I might convince my wife to do this since the car will be down for a while when I do the balancer shaft job

oCarbon

Price depends on how many pieces total and how complex they are. Looks like there are a few different W251 R-Class interior trim setups from the quick google search I did, so it will depend.

Keep in mind, we can custom do pretty much any piece, it doesn't have to be a wood piece of trim.

xxGenericSNxx

@oCarbon, I think your time and effort will be better spent on another subboard. Hardly any W251 owners are looking for CF trim on their interior because this car just isn't the right market for those types of add ons.

Despite saying that, CF trim looks great inside the R-Class and I had the same process done to mine. @vwfreak you're going to run into a ton of fitment issues if they do it your suggested way. If you're not interested, no need to be rude and just move on. oCarbon is keeping the option open for people who have the interest to replace their existing trim.

Brian425

I would be interested in the CF trim. The problem is sending in my existing trim and not knowing the price. I have done some development work with other vendors in the past. The parts were always free or deeply discounted.

Here is my concern. And please do not take this as an insult.

- In order to get this done, I need to send my wood trim to a vendor that I do not know.
- The cost is unknown
- The process cannot be undone. (So even if the quality is excellent and I just don't like the look, I cannot go back the the stock set-up)
- Turn around time is not clearly stated.

If you stated, we have cores for $xx.xx that we can use and the cost would be $xxx.xx, I would seriously consider it. I do not have the time to spend to find a set of trim for my R63. I think it would be a nice update that would look nice in a silver car with grey interior.

I think it would be helpful to offer your customer different options. Use your own trim and save $xx.xx with turn around of X days. Use our cores for $xx.xx with a turn around of Y days.

Posting your return policy would be helpful too.

oCarbon

You raise some valid points, I'll do my best to alleviate them.

1) You would need to send your trim to a vendor you don't know. However, that's a big part of why we're doing this discount, because we aren't known in the Mercedes community. We are very well known on the Audi forums for a very long time. You can see what others on MBworld have said about us in a few different places here:

https://mbworld.org/forums/5843533-post54.html
https://mbworld.org/forums/5883958-post5.html
https://mbworld.org/forums/5839419-post22.html
https://mbworld.org/forums/5764926-post46.html
https://mbworld.org/forums/5838952-post52.html

2) I'm still not sure what we'll be charging, because it will depend on what pieces you want. Additionally I don't want to post any pricing because once we've sold a few sets the pricing will go up. I don't want anyone to expect this cheap pricing in the future. You can email me with what you'd want and I can get you a quote.

3) The process is permanent. Nothing we can do about this.

4) Turn around time will depend on the pieces you want, as well as how complex they are. The reality is, I don't know how long any particular set will take until I do one. This is another reason you'd get a discount.

5) We can purchase a core for you, but generally, on these types of vehicles, we aren't able to find used cores because they are more rare than say, a standard C class. Purchasing a new core from Mercedes is probably $1000-1500, which would cost considerably more than what we'd charge for the carbon fiber.

6) We don't have a return policy on custom sets like these, only on standard sets that we have listed on our website. If you're on the fence about this or aren't sure if you'd like it, I'd suggest waiting until we have a few more of these sets under our belts and its a standard item. Then you can purchase it at full price and have the luxury of a return policy.

vwfreak

How will you ever offer a return policy on something that can not be returnd to original?

oCarbon

For sets that we stock, we generally have a few sets of core trim. You wouldn't get your original core back, but you'd get a similar one back.

However, it has never really been an issue. Returns are rare.

ghenry

Matt- Thanks for posting and giving us options for our MB's. After the first of the year I'll be in touch with some pics / questions for ya.

Gary

oCarbon

We're still looking for more W251 owners who would like to have a set made. Shoot me an email at matt@ocarbon.com if you're interested.

Few pics of recent Benz pieces that have turned out very nice:

oCarbon

Few pictures of a custom shift knob we just finished. Turned out really nice.

oCarbon

Hey guys,

Long time no updates, but I'm still looking for R-class owners who want sets made, particularly those who want some more custom pieces. We've got a lot of new colored fabrics in as well as some black ones with cool weaves.

I'd really like to find a few people who'd like to go the custom route so I can get some more installed pictures of the custom fabrics we offer, along with some of the more custom pieces. I'm willing to give some discounts to those who are willing to be a little more adventurous.

If you see anything you want or have any ideas and want more info, feel free to shoot me an email at matt@ocarbon.com and we can discuss your options.

A few recent pics of custom pieces we've done.

This is a 2x2 twill fabric with threads of reflective red running through it (it's also available in copper, gold, silver, blue and green). The pics don't do it justice:





We've also been doing quite a few standard colored kevlar sets, like these few in red, yellow, and orange:





Aluminum coated fiberglass too:


Some non-traditional black weaves as well:





Keep in mind we can also do things like mirror caps, door sills, center caps for wheels, you name it:

AMGoneday

Matt we just bought a R63 we do not like the wood trim. I have seen your work over on AudiZ great work.
We might be interested in some of the color options since we have the gray interior.
My wife could do some photo's and ect.

oCarbon

Couple new fabrics in now. Email me at matt@ocarbon.com if you're interested in having a set made.

Blue and red carbon/kevlar hybrid in a dual twill (it's woven slightly different than the standard carbon/kevlar 2x2 twill):




And reflective fabric in both silver and blue:

oCarbon

Teaser of a yellow carbon/kevlar set for a C63 and a silver black set for an Audi S4:

oCarbon

Some installed pics of our trim in a CL:

oCarbon

A recent W204 set:

tailwagon

Wow! These are super nice pieces. Have you been able to acquire core interiors for the R yet? They're rather inexpensive and plentiful on ebay and I've seen many R partouts on both Craigslist and eBay. Can you provide a rough estimate on an R interior swap? We talking $500 or $5000? Thanks for offering another option for the very limited W251.

oCarbon

We haven't been able to acquire a core, and so far haven't been able to find any serious R owners so I'm not sure if getting a core if its expensive makes sense.

Price depends on total number of pieces and their complexity, but most of the Mercedes sets we've done run between $800-1500.

oCarbon

A PDK shift knob we did for a Porsche GT3. We can do something similar with MB shift knobs: