bradleyt09

I have found a 1995 993 for sale locally. The car is stock and very clean with low miles, but the upholstery, specifically the driver's bolster shows very heavy wear. There are no tears but the leather shows significant scuffing and discoloration. I spoke with a local shop and they did not recommend dyeing the leather as they said it is only a surface air-brush and would not last. Also the shifter **** shows wear. Otherwise the car is perfect. What are my options to make the interior like-new? Is it ill-advised to reupholster the bolsters (if this is even possible) or is this a bad idea to alter the original stock interior? What about the shifter ****? Any recommendations and advice will be very much appreciated. I don't want to affect the originality of the car if this will negatively impact the value.

GT917

I would challenge the mileage ... the upholstery is quite strong and should not show scratches or discoloration if low mileage.

Anyway, you can DIY with this (like I did, very efficient so far after two years) :

https://www.colourlock.com/

No impact obviously on your car's value, and this is part of the fun to pamper it !

95_993

Bolster wear on these cars is very common and can show up fairly early depending on on the entry/exit habits the previous owner had. I have seen worn bolsters on cars with under 30k miles. I do not agree with your local shop....dying the leather with something like colorplus is the right approach....many threads here on it. Do not let it deter you from the car

mike cap

The driver LH bolster wears rapidly. I have a 40k garage queen and dyed mine with Color Plus due to scuffing.

Whst color is the interior? Mine is Classic Gray and came out beautifully and a near perfect match. You can do it or a good interior shop does this all the time. Give it a try.

Shift **** can be replaced of refinished.

993c4_Toronto

There is a lengthy post where I showed the process of stripping and dying my seats. It worked out very well. Not sure it will last 10 years, but massive improvement.

You can always enjoy the car while searching for new replacement seats - or save up and buy a set from turboseat - another great thread.

bradleyt09

Thanks for the feedback. I trust that the mileage is correct and am glad to know that bolster wear is common. The interior is tan (cashmere?). I didn't want to devalue the car by altering the seats and shifter, but these things would really bother me and are a serious consideration that have been deterring me from buying the car.

pp000830

If it has no rips and you wish to reinforce it, it can be done by releasing the edge of the seat cover and gluing another piece of leather to the back of the existing leather. Be sure to make the patch of a shape and size that its edges match the placement of the edge seams of the existing leather so an outline of it does not appear through the leather.

I would wax the exterior with matching color shoe paste wax or dye and then go over it again with neutral paste wax to avoid the transfer of the color to your clothes. Leather responds surprisingly well to a little TLC even if it looks rather bad.

If you chose to replace the leather I have had trouble finding a shop that wants to simply repair seats. I ended up going to new seat covers I installed and documented here on Rennlist. See the below URL.

The best solution to get a good match to your original seats is to ask Renlist members if someone who recovered both their seats has the part from the passenger side. The old cut-out for the seat switches can be patched shut and is not visible when the seat bottom is transferred to the driver side. The seat back is identical and does not present issues.

https://rennlist.com/forums/993-foru...ack-seats.html

bradleyt09

I have attached a couple of pics. This will be more accurate than my description. I think this is only surface wear and scuffing.

Mark in Baltimore

The seats are a super easy fix. Have a local leather repair guy address and be done with it. I've had it done to other cars, and the repairs were durable.

nile13

The seat looks like it could be a mid-mileage car (50K?). The shifter doesn't. Unless it's a right-hand drive car (seems to be) the PO was wearing a ring on his/her left hand.

One of the issues with beige interiors in 993s is that they show wear terribly easily. Part of it is that you can see dirt in the cracks. Some simple deep cleaning would help, to begin with. But for god's sake, it's a garden variety 993. Stop overthinking about "devaluing" it. I am starting to have a feeling that people don't buy their cars to drive anymore, two posts on similar topic just today. Drive and enjoy!

993c4_Toronto

No big deal. Easily remedied by your own DIY or by a vendor.

Tlaloc75

Colourlock looks pretty good. Do you happen to have classic grey? If so, which color code did you order for the dye? Were you happy with the color match?

pp000830

From looking at your picture it seems like a very minor purely cosmetic issue. I bet you can find shoe dye that is a good match and then just wax it with a little neutral shoe paste. If you try leather cleaner first it may just pull the dark discoloration (dirt) out of the leather and minimize the visual issue.

bradleyt09

Thanks for all the replies. I realize this is purely cosmetic, but I want to feel good about the car and this really aggravates my OCD.

nile13

I would be concerned by the state of the shifter. It's fairly well cracked leather. If the car is in UK where the sun shines for 7 minutes a year and even though it's a convertible, I'd seriously look at pedals and other things to determine the actual mileage. BTW I do not understand whats the thin black thing is in the upper left corner of the first pic.