All, My brother's 997.1 Turbo Seats are cracking, Any ideas on how to repair and or replace, por optoins? Thank you in advance for your help.

See what I mean

 

A new seat would probably be more cost effective than a repair - I found that ordering the OEM leather and having an upholstery shop do it is a little bit of a headache with non-black since the dye lots are dramatically different year over year (experience with stone grey). Red may be different but a non-sport seat isn’t too hard to find given that they’re shared with all 9x7 range.

 

I think you'd be best served by having a pro do that repair. I haven't used them personally but have heard good things about D&R Auto and Boat on Rt 53 in Denville.
With that said, there are other upholstery shops in the area that should be able to tackle the job.

 

I used a local upholstery shop that advertised that they repair leather seats in cars for my Infiniti SUV that I used to own and they did a decent job repairing a tear in my driver’s seat (they came over to my house to do it too). I think they basically just cut away a section where the repair will be and then apply a vinyl goop that they color match and then iron it down to make it look like the leather surrounding it (they also poke the little holes in it to make it look like the perforated leather if needed). It’s not 100% perfect looking but close enough for my needs on my daily driver at the time and lasted till I sold the car. Maybe your bro can find a similar shop near him.

 

The damaged leather section needs to be removed and replaced. It won’t look right otherwise.

 

I tend to agree with this. While some leather repair shops can work miracles, the fact that those tears are long and are on perforated leather, they will likely advise to replace the whole panel.

Additionally, I would advise doing the opposing panel on the same seat and maybe the other seat panels as well because A) the color and amount of wear will match and be symmetrical and B) the others could likely crack soon due to age and wear. My buddy got a tear on the passenger seat of his 997.2 a while back and he had the leather seat insert replaced on that side only. He immediately regretted not having the driver side done, as the driver's side was dry and hard in comparison to the passenger side. Just something to consider when going through the time and expense already to replace the one damaged panel.

 

If you have a picture of your entire seat it might be good to see that? But without that, based on what I see here:

Probably a replacement of that particular leather panel. They would remove seat from car. Remove seat back cover. Remove that panel from it, and resew in new leather in that portion. Repairs are possible, and people will do it, but especially on perforated leather, they have never once met my standard (which admittedly, is high bordering on perfection).

The trick will be to get an exact color match and an exact match on the perforation pattern. The perforation pattern must be an exact match or you will notice it right away, and you’d be surprised how many slight variations there are on these perforation patterns (hole size, hole placement and pattern). That said, Porsche is a pretty common leather repair, and the exact hole pattern does exist out there from aftermarket leather suppliers (maybe even the original supplier to Porsche sells it aftermarket now).

If the rest of the seat is fine, a good upholsterer can just replace the damaged panels with exact match leather and leave the rest of the seat intact. However, some upholsterers will not mess with that and only replace the full cover.

One consideration -- that I think may not apply to your seat -- is if you have the Porsche crest in the headrest area (It doesn’t appear that you have this embossed in, although I can’t quite tell). If you do have this, it’s a bit more difficult of a proposition.

 

Also. That happened from being dried out in the sun. And then that dried out leather was stretched beyond what it could take by ingress/egress in and out of the car. Try to keep it conditioned (4x a year) in the future. Will prevent this from happening -- dried leather won’t stretch, which it needs to when you’re moving around in the seat. I use Leather Masters Leather Conditioner.

 

All of the options listed above are valid - Just having personally dealt with dye lots from porsche (not Carrera Red, Stone Grey) It was impossible to find leather that matched well enough for me to be happy with it. OEM, aftermarket, regardless - it was quite difficult. Even my sport seats I sourced from a 987 in stone grey were slightly different hue. Considering the age and the fact that it cracked from sun exposure, it will probably be quite difficult to match, and also on the non-sport seats, the leather goes all the way around back, so it's quite the large panel, and quite expensive.

I would seriously recommend just sourcing a used seat back, such as (but for a 9x7)
Something like this.





It would be more cost effective, and look better.
Have them send you a photo with pure white printer paper held up behind it, and take a picture of yours with white printer paper behind it. I'm happy to calibrate them both 1:1 to get an idea of how close they match.


Alternatively - you can wrap the bolsters on both seats in black, for a contrast with red inserts. It would be the same price if not cheaper than sourcing the correct red.