Hello everyone!
I thought this post may be useful to some of you who have leather seats.
The leather seats in our P38 were starting to go the wrong way, (and by that I don’t mean they were facing backwards) the leather was starting to crack and split, and the colour was fading, so I looked into what was on the market to restore them back to good condition, I knew if the leather wasn’t treated quickly it would start splitting badly and would then need a professional repair and probably some new leather stitching in which would be expensive. So it was time to act and not put it off any longer. I have had Range Rovers in the past where the leather has worn out due to lack of maintenance and if I had know about these kits it would probably have been a different story.
On Ebay I came across Scratch Doctor who specialize in leather repair work, they can supply all the necessary tools, glues and colourings to suit your cars leather interior. After a quick phone call they advised me that I would need their ‘Pro-leather Repair kit’, so I purchased one from their Ebay shop selecting dark grey for the colour. (Our Range Rover seats are a very dark grey, in fact they are almost black) The kit comes with colour tints to either darken or lighten the special colour coat.
The next day it arrived and I had a spare hour or two of free time so I had a go at repairing the worn areas on the drivers seat, and treating the other seats.
Above shows the Scratch Doctor kit.
I also just wanted to mention that there are many other leather repair kits on the market and I am not getting anything for endorsing this particular brand. It just happened to be the one I thought looked good and their customer service was good.
This is the worn and faded drivers seat, as you can see the leather looks in need of some TLC.
Above shows a more close up of the splits and wear.
The split on the front lower edge of the drivers seat (see previous picture) is an area very prone to wear as it’s where your legs rub past when you are getting in and out.
The first thing was to use some leather cleaner on and around the affected area.
Then we cut a small piece of repair material.
I glued this onto the inside of the split and it held the split together whilst the leather glue was applied, I needed to use a cocktail stick to push the patch inside the seat, then I worked some glue in with the stick to make sure there was enough glue on the inside of the patch.
I then used a heat gun on it’s lowest setting to cure the glue.
Once dry the next stage was to fill the split with some of the special leather filler, this looks abit like putty and you apply it with a wooden lolly pop stick (all provided in the kit). You may need to apply a few layers of the filler to get the right result, I needed 2 coats to fill the split.
Once the filler had cured (heat gun on low setting again) and I had cleaned the area for dirt it was time for the colour coat. This can be the tricky bit because you have to colour match it to your leather colour using the colour tints provided, it takes some time to get the right shade, appling the colour coat is easy by using the sponges provided to dab or wipe the area to coat it with the top coat. I coloured the complete bottom section of the seat because it was very worn and thought it would look better if all the lower seat was recoated.
On small areas I used a cotton bud to colour the worn areas.
The last part of the process was to apply a clear top coat. The kit contains 2 bottles of top coat, 1 gloss and 1 matt finish, as our Range Rover had a satin finish to the leather we had to mix the 2 together to make a satin look and apply with a sponge, we applied 2 of the top coats.
The results turned out great and now my Range Rover leather seats look almost as good as new, and what’s more that split has been repaired so it won’t get any worse and result in an expensive fix.
I am really impressed with the results and will use these kits in the future.
I even treated the gear lever, above shows before and below shows after.
Even the gear knob has turned out great!
I would recommend using one of these kits if your leather is getting worn because they are easy to use, don’t cost the earth and they leave your seats looking like new.
The good spate of weather we have been having has now broken and Autumn is definately here, so now is a good time to get all your outstanding rust treatment work done, we can supply all the things you need to get the job done from wire brushes to Metalmorphosis, so why not check out our shop. All purchases help us to keep providing free blog posts.
Cheers ! James
Freshly brewed reviews in www.38today.com
