Edit: Updated to have all the instructions at the top.
Total budget used so far. $75 purchase of seats $75 repair and refinish of seats.

Got a set of maxima tan leather seats for $75 dollars from a junker because they were cracked, ripped, and generally ****ty.

Haven't refinished the driver and passenger side seats yet but I'll post later with before and after pictures on them.

Here's what the rear seats look like after stripping with acetone and steel wool, trimming & sanding imperfections with 1500 grit sandpaper, using a leather repair kit from advance auto, and applying zelikovitz black professional leather dye.



I have a total of $40 in this back seat setup.

I highly recommend putting in the hard work to refinish leather seats, it makes the maxima so comfy! I was very pleased with the zelikovitz leather dyes; went on easy, three or four coats and it was beautiful. Pro dye is oil based and seemed to really make the leather supple. Spent allot of time researching how to do this and wanted to share my experience with anyone else wanting to give it a try. Good luck!!

Alright boys, have a few photos of the beginning stages of the process. The seat in the picture that's already stained black was FAR WORSE than this seat so keep that in mind. This one should turn out immaculate compared to the first one I did.

Seat before stripping:



Supplies!! (Wear chem resistant gloves or thick leather: acetone is NASTY)



If the seat does not look like complete dog **** you haven't used enough acetone yet. I recommend using it sparingly until you get a feel for it. Always cover the lid right after putting some of it on your 0000 steel wool because the damn stuff will evaporate right out of the can if you don't cover it and work quick. Make sure to go over ANY area that is glistening or shining still when you are done. The protective coating you are taking off is what keeps your new dye from penetrating the leather. The leather should begin to expand and look coarse; downright disgusting if you are doing it right. The key is to get it to look about like the picture below, but not use so much acetone and scrubbing that you tear your leather apart.



This is what damaged areas with cracks should look like.



I'll post more when I start to work on the cracks and dye. Might be a few days.

I am not including the instructions on how to patch holes and fix tears because the repair kit has a tutorial in it and all you have to do is read it.

This is what three coats looks like on an area you didn't strip enough with acetone (stupid me.) You can still get it right, but it will take quite a few more coats to get it to soak in and cover correctly. You can always sand it down when it dries to open up the leather and make it easier. Personally I just dye it more.



This is what an area that has been stripped appropriately looks like after three thin coats.


I'd rather do many coats thin that do them too thick and fubar it.

I recommend that if you come back to it and see runs that you don't just rub them off. Instead, wet your sponge brush with dye and brush over it. Seems to work better that way. I'll post pics when this seat is finished.

Another three-six light coats will finish it.

This is a finished seat with about 6-7 light coats.



This is the last seat; driver's side.





To be honest with you I don't know if I can repair this, but I'm going to try.

If my method works it will have cost less than $20 bucks in supplies to fix this seat. I have a small square of leather from the patch kit that I am going to use to fill in the hole in the upper left side of the seat (facing.) The two large tears on either side I am going to *attempt* to place a demin jeans iron on patch behind them and gently heat the edges with my heating tool from the repair kit (with a cloth over the leather of course) until the patch begins to adhere to the back. Once, God willing and hopefully, the patch is holding the leather gingerly in place I have purchased four curved needles and I am going to sew the leather back together in an X pattern with 6 pound fishing line. I wanted a line that would break before it would tear through the leather if something went horribly wrong. IF the line goes in with no problems I am going to freehand it right away; if not, I am going to predrill every hole that my line is going to go through with a very small drill bit (smallest I have in my set,) and then sew through the predrilled holes. After the line is in I am going to press repair kit adhesive glue into all of the fishing line until it creates a slightly raised hump. Lastly I'm going to cover it in a good layer of leather and vinyl repair compound to hide the stitching completely leaving only a raised bead where the terrible tears were at before. I am choosing to use the fishing line instead of standard industrial strength thread because I want it to chemically bond to the leather and vinyl adhesive creating a complete seal structure between the glue adhesive on the patch underneath and the repair adhesive on the top. Much like when you skin scars over and it uses a much stronger and tighter knit structure to repair the rupture and prevent further tearing.

Wish me luck!

So far so good!

The heating tool was insufficient to head the jean patch underneath the leather so I resorted to laying a t-shirt over the seat and using an iron with no steam on the wool setting. It worked very effectively at holding the leather together. The stitching and the adhesive turned out well in the test area; take a look!



Amazingly the patching method I cooked up in my crazy head actually worked. The horrific tears in the leather are sealed and all that's left to do is keep building the area up with layers of adhesive topped in a layer of vinyl compound to create a new surface in the areas where the leather was destroyed. Thank God black is a forgiving dye color because this seat is going to need it.



Alright, finally finished the driver's seat. Chose to go overboard on the stitching and lay the vinyl on thick over the stitches. At some point I realized I'd rather have a seat that would never tear again than one that just looked good.



Finished product installed, I need new seat belts now :P

 

Hey, nice post there.. Before and after shots and closeups would be great!

 

sweet job man

 

Are you going to do the fronts? If you are and you don't mind revealing your budget, I'd be interested to know how much a full leather swap would cost. I don't mind DIY repairs and reconditioning.

I actually don't especially like leather in cars and prefer the gray cloth I've got, but I saw a decent black leather interior at my j-yard yesterday and got curious.

 

looks like mine when i spray black majic on them! looks good.

 

better yet, a write up

 

I dont know man... $75 for torn leather seems like not that great of a deal... if it required no work or came without tears then I'd agree. On the other hand, you're doing a great job bringing them back to life!

 

great job, lot of effort there.

 

I'm going to do the front seats next. Probably won't start until August 1-3 when I have more free time. The passenger seat is in pretty good shape, but the driver seat is a frankenstein. I will definitelly do before, during, and after shots with a tutorial. I learned ALLOT doing the rear seats and made allot of mistakes but black dye is very forgiving. Those seats in the picture had about 10-14 cracks cracks along the top and 3 major(1-3 inch) gashes in the seat. The back seats took a week to finish.

The worst part has got to be getting the patch kit to match the old leather. If you want it to be *Perfect* you're going to have to spend ALLOT of time sanding down the new vinyl that fills in the cracks to just the level of the rest of the seat. Personally I just got them close enough and dyed the living **** out of them. A few imperfections in black leather seats makes them look sezzy to me. Plus, you can always go back, sand an area down, and re-apply the dye to that spot. It comes out perfect. (tried it)

Will definitely try to do a full writeup on the process next go round.

 

So far I have $75 in the seats, $15 in gloves & 1qt acetone, $35 in dye.

Whopping total of $125 dollars. Should have enough dye to finish at least the passenger seat without having to get more. The driver seat is truly wretched so I'm thinking I'll have to work on it last. I have a couple of areas that if I manage to repair them I will be amazed. Somebody really fat and sweaty must have owned the car those seats came out of at one point.

 

"How to" highly wanted.
I want to renew tan driver seat (and maybe more later.)
wonder what kind of product did you use, i did some research before and i was confused
they sell something on ebay, something in Advanced Auto Parts. Which one is best value/quality product, that contains everything to make job done (fill crack, match color, dye) and some tips how to would be appreciate!
40$ for back seats restore sounds good

PS do you have photo "before" to compare?

 

that looks awsome

 

mos def need a how to for my tan leather..

 

Professional leather dye (especially zelikovitz) is the only way to go IMO. The crack repair kit from advance auto has a glue in it to fill the crack and hold a leather backing behind it; then you smear the hole with filler after the initial glue dries and you use a heat treatment tool and a swatch of pattern paper to blend the old spot in with the new. It works fairly well, but to get a perfect match you have to sand it down after it dries and possibly re-texture it with the heat tool again.

The back seats cost me a third of my budget; so $40 dollars was to purchase, strip, and refinish the back seats. I will have less than $130 total in purchasing and refinishing these seats.

 

I have to congrate you on your efforts man. Nice work.

 

you died tan leather seats black.. wow looks great man.. I'm going to try and do my tan over again.. is there any difference

 

The tan seats are more plentiful and sell for cheap. Not to mention they tend to look like glorified dog **** after a while.

The only difference is the dye you buy. As long as you clean and strip the seats thoroughly you should be able to dye them any color you want. Link below

http://www.zelikovitz.com/index.php?...d=108&Itemid=1

 

i have black leathers but they are really dried out and dont look or feel soft at all... any suggestions to make em look like they do in ur pic? cuz they look great

 

If you've let the leather go so far without conditioning, or worse used a silicon based conditioner, the actual structure of the leather will change and it will be very difficult to get it to be soft again. I would highly recommend using a moisturizing product without silicon in it to attempt to rejuvinate the leather. If that doesn't work you're going to have to go with something more aggressive like mink oil (again, without silicon in it because many mink oil pastes have it in it.) Mink oil will soften and oil a leather magnificently but will leave it feeling just a touch greasy at first. Has the added benefit of waterproofing the leather.

Lastly, you can always strip down the seats and redye them. Stripping them down will let you open the pores on the leather, sand down VERY gently the spots that are especially rough (1000 or 1500 grit,) and lastly rejuvenate the leather by using an oil based dye. It's cheap to do (less than 50 bucks,) but extremely labor intensive and time consuming.

Try as you might, if you've let the leather cook too much it's going to always be a little stiff. The actual structure of your hide will change with the appropriate combination of sun damage, heat damage, water damage, etc...

Good luck though.

 

looks great man! keep up the great work.

 

the question is how do i find dye that match stock tan interior? let's say i wanna do only front seats or only touch up few spots, is there color number for our maximas leather?

 

im not a leather person but 75 bux is pretty good

 

That's likely going to be so much more amazingly expensive that just redoing the seats to look brand new that I don't even want to fathom what you'd have to go through.

 

thanks man ill def give it a try

 

I hope it all works out because I would do this if it does!

 

so you saying all or nothing?
i saw seller on ebay that can send you samples to match your leather, this kit can be less quality, but maybe is good enough for "lazy" restorer? (or touch ups) and at least it i wouldnt have to buy another kit to fill crack because it is like bondo... what do you think about this colorants?

i just don't wanna do all seats coz only one looks bad... looking for solution

forget, link below would be useful to make opinion
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/All-A...Q5fAccessories

 

In my opinion, yes, you should redo them all because it's more work, less expense, and more likely to produce a consistent product.

If you're only working on one or two spots you can get a cheap repair kit from advance or a similar. You can mix and match the color compounds until you find a match for your seats.

 

Don't sit on the seats for 48 hours; let them dry in a dust free area. This allows the dye to soak up into the leather and fill the cracks instead of just sitting on top of the leather. After 48 hours you may have to do some touch up where it soaks in and let it dry an additional 48 hours. When it's dry and all said and done you will need to rub a protected into it such as mink oil or Lexol. Avoid any product with silicon in it. Tends to mess leather up over time.

 

wow, nice work, If i didnt already have blk leather I would consider this. Nice out come.

 

It turned out far better than I expected. The driver seat is so bad that I may just buy a new one. I was honestly not expecting the leather to soak up the oils so well with the dye but it was like life just breathed back into the hide.

Now to just get my damn seat belts black UGH!!! haha

 

Good **** homie. This is a plus 10 on the org.

 

Updated Instructions.

 

How are they holding up? I did this same thing to my boat, it lasted for about a year but obviously the boat is more susceptible to damage from constant water.

 

So far so good, but I literally just did them. :P

I intend to wipe lexol into them every month or more if necessary to preserve them. I'm also avoiding large amounts of direct sunlight. I'm thinking these will hold up well.

 

Im excited to see how they hold up

 

Well, if I did the job right they should hold up amazing. Because I stripped it down with acetone and scrubbed the leather open with the steel wool the dye actually penetrated the leather instead of just laying on top of it. I may have to touch up a few places over the months where I didn't strip properly, but aside from that if you take care of leather correctly it should never crack or fade again. Most people are just lazy and don't moisturize and clean their leather seats every month.

I should be done with the driver's seat tonight. Finally done with this project. I decided to go fro function and not looks on the driver's seat because the tears were so drastic.

 

awesome job. is anything else black in your interior?

 

The old interior repaint I did was a hammered brass (kinda brown color) and black. Probably going to sand it all down and repaint it all jet black. The carpet is black. Still need to redo the headliner.

Update: Finished the last seat.

 

That should look pretty slick any pics

 

All the pics are in the first post; I just keep editing it so it's an easy read for anyone wanting to take on this kind of project.