champignon

I was not referring to your link; the comment that you responded to is 2 paragraphs removed from my reference to your link. I was referring to multiple other threads on other sites (in fact for other brands of vehicles) one can find with googling, that show before and after photos but no follow up.

champignon

I went back to your link and reread a lot of the posts in your thread. The results are obviously great, and they have stood the test of time; congrats!

What you did, however, not only was to refinish the seats but also to change their color. It was a big job and the results speak for themselves.

What I wanted to do, and have done, is however much more modest. I just wanted to touch up some wear items, but not to change the impression that this is a ~15 year old car, albeit well-cared for. I just wanted to touch up the excessively worn areas, that could not easily or cheaply be replaced, such as the steering wheel, grips on both doors, parking brake handle, and couple of other areas.

The link I gave in my original post was for a website selling basic prep materials and dye, among other things. Of course they want to sell you all kinds of things, and kits for this and that, but I was not looking for that, with the modest goals I had. Fortunately, the other leather pieces in my car were in good enough shape that I did not want to address them. The leather in the areas I wanted to treat were also in good condition, even though the dye was worn through in some areas.

The rest of this I am stating on faith, not facts, because I'll have to see for myself how all of this holds up, over time. My impression is that the prep work needed if you are going to retain the original color, but want to "patch" it, is way less than if you want to change the color. So what you want to do is to take off all of the dirt, and the body oils, and the leather products, and the varnish, and to rough up the surface a bit, so that the dye you are going to use will penetrate and adhere. But putting black dye over black-dyed leather is a pretty modest treatment in the overall scheme of things. I am assuming that this is the same, if you are replacing or refurbing the same color, be it black, red, tan, or whatever.

I put many, many, coats on, maybe 10 coats over a period of 8 or 10 hours. The results were not 100% uniform, and there was some streaking and if you looked closely, some of it was fairly obvious. I am expecting that with use over the course of a year or so that all of this will fade into the background. I am hoping that the dye I applied will adhere well and not flake off.

We shall see on all of this.

Ridin Dirty

I have done this process on my 993tt. Air brush and all. nightmare. Probably invested 100+ hours into refinishing 2 seats. Never again. I have learned a skill i will never use again. Don't get me wrong you could leather dye it and seal it and improve it 500% BUT it won't be perfect not by a long shot. If you want new/oem look take it to a professional. And even that does not guarantee better results...a lot of so-called leather re-finishers are hacks especially the franchise ones; you can become better than them after 10 hours of practice. An auto restorer who has a specialty in leather is needed IMO.; some are so good they make it look brand new/oem. After 100 hours i'd say mine looks 98% perfect...but like i said/first and last time i would do that...even if i was retired on a deserted island with just me and the Porsche I'd never do that again.

napoleon1981

I was interested in your specific results. I'm aware I can do a google search to find that of others.

champignon

After I put something like 10 coats of the dye on the steering wheel and the other worn areas, I was away from town for almost 2 weeks, then returned last week, briefly. I would say that the treated areas looked a lot better than they did before I started, however they did not look "new." They just more or less blended in with the rest of the car's interior, which does show some of the effects of being 14 years old.

I didn't drive the car very much as I was occupied with work responsibilities and had little time, plus I'm trying to resolve what to do about the fact that the car is tuned to 93 Octane gas and all I can buy is 91 Octane. There was no indication that the dye is going to wear off prematurely, however more time is obviously required to have any certainty about the durability of the treatment/repair.