06-20-2008, 01:52 PM
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| Member
Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 124
| leather repair - seats, steering wheel FYI
My 92 convert has medium gray leather seats and the leather wrapped steering wheel - the seats were of course hard and dry, and there was a 1/2" split and a couple cracks in the driver seat back and a 3 way split about 1/2" each side on upper part of rear seat back, and the steering wheel had a number of chunks out of it and some small scrapes on top section of rim.
My car is a very nice driver, 49k miles, I am second owner, all correct and # matching. I do not want a show car but am pretty picky and want it all very nice.
Given the price of new leather and nice leather wrapped wheels I thought i would try a mobile leather repair service. It cost me $150, he spent over 3 hrs on the car. While not perfect I am satisfied with it, and it certainly cost less than the alternatives. The wheel was filled and sanded, then colored - surprisingly the smaller chips were too small to fill since the material does not have enough to hold onto, but it looks much, much better. The driver seatback repair is unnoticeable unless you get within a few inches - the rear seat upper splits are not as good - leather was so hard he had to use vinyl repair material instead of leather repair, but as I said I am pretty picky and most people would be satisfied with it.
Check out www.leathermagic.com for good pictures and video of the repair process before and afters. Most of the repair guys are franchisees and the quality of the work varies depending on their skill level. If you are braver (or more foolish) than I you can also buy the materials and try it yourself.
They also can do vinyl repair and some hard plastics.
For treating and softening leather I had good results with SOFFENER, and the products available from leather magic also work well. | | | |
 
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