I know black seems to have been a great success. But my seats have seen better days. Not too shabby for a 15-yr-old car, but sure would be nice to freshen up the look considering everything else on the car looks great. Any thoughts on cashmere?

Edward

 

I want to know too and hear about recent successes. My seats look great, but there are a few small blemishes from someone getting in and out that I'd love to fix.

 

Edward,

If your seats are anything like mine with many small cracks in addition to the worn dye areas, then you might want to contact Pioneer Leather Restoration. Lee is very highly recommended and just quoted me a great price to come out and do both seats. I'm going to have him do mine but probably won't get to it until Dec or Jan so you'll have to wait for feedback from me.

Anyway, you might want to check into it as I was surprised how reasonable it was to have them professionally refurbished.

 

Whoa there ...sounds like a great recommendation and you are in SoCal! And yes, lots of small cracks. No rips, just lots of normal wear, 90% of which is on the driver's seat of course, but I want the pass seat to match. Have you seen any of the work first hand yet? What does he run (you can PM me ...I'm intersted, thanks!)

And to others, great opportunity for you to show off with pics! I'd love to see what is possible with this possible DIY job ('cause I'm pinching pennies).

Edward

 

PM Sent. Let us know if you give it a go...

 

FWIW, I have an almost full, 1 quart can of Surflex in cashmere... and you can have it for the cost of shipping. My experience was that it wasn't worth using on a seat. Surflex is more like a paint than a dye, and it forms a skin over the leather. The color match was great, but where it goes over seams and threads, it makes it look like one large piece of vinyl with embossed seams... Definitely not the look that I wanted. It is also difficult to keep the brush strokes from showing and it scuffs rather easily. Based on my experience with the cashmere Surflex, I have a hard time imagining how people have had success with the black. Before anyone asks, I spent a great deal of time talking to the people at Color Plus to understand the process and to properly clean and prep the leather before I applied the Surflex. I have used a true leather dye to refurbish my black steering wheel and shift ***** and they came out great, but Surflex wasn't all that. However it might work well for a low wear area like a door panel. I would definitely take VNTGSPD's advice and have the seats professionally restored.

 

Thanks, Jeff, for that candid review ...I appreciate that!

Got the PM, David. Perfect info ...thanks!!!

I am shooting for the Christmas holidays, all. Here's hoping that I can swing it (given this economy ...ugh!)


Edward

 

For what it may be worth, here's a list of web sites on leather that I have collected over the last year or so. Not sure they all still work.
www.liquidleather.com
http://www.colorplus.com/frameset_brochure.html
http://www.aglausa.com/p/porsche.html
http://www.designpaulchampagne.com/PorscheLeather.html
http://www.928leathershop.com/

 

You might want to a search on aglausa / Alan Gun Leather Accessories before you consider them. I have no experience with them, but have read about others experience here on RL. On the other hand, I have heard great things about 928 leather shop, but no experience there either.