i have a couple of panels on my seats i want to replace. where at , besides the dealer can i get some reasonably priced pieces of leather? the dealer wants like $1000 for the leather of just one seat!!!!

 

Your local auto upholstery shop should be able to fix you up easily. A really cheap way to do it would be to buy a whole hide that matches your seats and have the shop cut out replacement pieces and have them sewn in. That way you are only paying for hourly labor (expect $50.00/hr.) and not an insane markup on the leather. An excellent source for any kind of leather is:

www.siegelofca.com

I'm not sure if they deal with the general public but if you have a business or a friend with a business they usually are very cooperative. I'd send them a snip and see if they can match it - odds are they can - easily.
and...inexpensively. Pull the seats and disassemble them yourself right down to the covers - it's easy and detailed in the Mazda shop manual.