cerealuk Posted January 11, 2010 Share Posted January 11, 2010 Anyone have any advice / contacts / idea of cost for repairing or restoring this ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stanski Posted January 11, 2010 Share Posted January 11, 2010 Hi - there is a similar thread here - advice is the same viewtopic.php?f=22&t=31022 Although yours is a bit worse than some I have seen and its amplified by that pale colour? Ideally a close up pic of the damaged area would be good but anyway.. Basically you have 2 options a) Cheap option Expensive option Lets start with cheap option: Stage 1: Buy some leather cleaner and leather cream/conditioner such as Glyptone, Connollys hide food or Autoglym. Follow the instructions on the cleaner and using a dry soft rag clean the whole seat. Dry it off then apply a small amount of the conditioner in circular motions to the whole seat but concentrate more of it in the damaged area- let if soak in gently and wait about 30 mins - repeat another time for the whole seat but repeat about 3-4 just in the damaged area. Follow the instructions but I would recommend you leave it to soak overnight and dot use the car the day after. Use a dry cloth to wipe off any excess and see how the damage looks - it will either look 100% better and blend in with the seat or it will just be a marginal imrpovement of say 20% better either way non of this is wasted effort as these seats need some love and attention! Stage 2: If this still looks pants and you cant regain the colour of the rest of the seat you need to send off to Glytone or Woolies trim supplies for a colour match kit - they match the colour of your good leather and make up a repair kit. Of course this means you need to provide a sample! follow the instructions they will provide all you need. Option B: Expensive option! You pop down to your friendly car (coach) trimmers and they will do a number of things. They will either try the technique I described above or they will replace the side piece - which means a stripdown and they attempting to find a colour match to that leather !(not the easiest colour to match but not impossible) If they are real scumbags they will try to rip you off and tell you they cant match the colour and you need a whole new seat - in that case walk away! Either way you are probably looking at I recon £150-£200 for that work - its the time to strip and replace thats where you pay your money. You can of course do that yourself but no self respecting trimmer will like that! Buy a second hand one off fleabay but you will only come up against the same issues in years to come. If the passenger one is the same may be worth retrimming them both at the same time? Once again please remember there is an airbag in the side so be very careful? Hope this helps let us know how you get on. If you have any other questions please PM happy to help Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cerealuk Posted January 11, 2010 Author Share Posted January 11, 2010 thanks for that stan. really helpful! I have attached a closer up picture of the damage. I wouldn't mind spending a bit on it to get it looking perfect, but really wouldn't want to go to the extent of a full retrim! Thanks again Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stanski Posted January 11, 2010 Share Posted January 11, 2010 The problem with a retrim (even just the side panel) is no 2 pieces of leather are the same so there will always be a slight shade difference. Seriously dont spend a fortune on it - go with the fist option of leather cream - Connolly hide food works miracles (we have a 1958 Wolseley to sort and its brought the seats back to life really well )- of course elbow grease is required but since yours is fairly newish leather it should come back to an acceptable level. You will be amazed how much some rehydration of the leather can bring the colour back. Hide food also helps to move some of the pigment off the good leather and sometimes you can use that to recolour the damaged area. But only a little by circular motions again on a soft cloth. Give it a try you have nothing to lose but £10 for a tub of hide food! (which will last you at least 10 years) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cerealuk Posted January 11, 2010 Author Share Posted January 11, 2010 £10 does sound better than a retrim thanks again for the advice Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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