Restoring Leather: Part 2

In my first post I discussed the most basic concepts of restoring leather.  I'm going to go a bit more in-depth on this post and discuss a lot of stuff about how the automotive industry deals with leather and what can be done to restore and preserve the leather you have.

First, although leather is more prevalent now than it has been in the past (even Kia's and Hyundai's offer it as an option), the leather used now is a little different than what my father had on his old 70's Cadillacs.  To begin with, it's much thinner than leather used then and it is dyed differently.  One of my recent clients thought that "spray" dyeing was a cheaper method than pure-through dyeing and he was right, but he shouldn't feel bad.  Likely 90-95% of all car leathers are spray-dyed.  Only a tiny percentage of cars (Bentley, Rolls Royce, Ferrari, Aston Martin) will use leather that has been vat dyed (the color is imbedded in the leather versus sprayed over the top).

Is the leather in the Bentley and Rolls better than the leather in your car simply because it was dyed differently?  No.  It is better leather though, mainly because the cows it comes from are carried around on pillows, never scrape their skin and eat better than you or I do.  The leather from these pampered cows is flawless.  Dyeing this leather in a vat doesn't make it better, but it does  help to eliminate one issue most other automotive leathers have:  Cracking.

Cracking occurs when the flexible color dye that is sprayed onto your leather begins to wear and develops cracks.  Since the leather underneath is usually just a pale cream (natural leather) it can really be noticeable especially on cars with darker interiors.  You can opt to replace the leather.  I was going to do this with my Mercedes ML which actually has German Vinyl rather than leather.  I was quoted from $3,000 to $5,000 to do this.  Or, you can strip the original dye off and replace it.  Take a look at the pictures below.  The first set is from my Mercedes ML:

Vinyl is dirty, cracked and worn

Vinyl is re-dyed, as new

This second set of pictures is from a recent client who had a Hyundai SUV with a full leather interior:

Seat is heavily worn and stained

Seat is re-dyed to original specs

The repairs to these interiors cost literally 1/6 of what it would cost to actually replace the leather and the turn-around time is significantly less.  If your leather is seriously damaged and ripped or if your seats cushions have been seriously compromised then replacing the leather makes sense.  However, if the leather itself is in good shape and only the topical coating is damaged, the re-dyeing method is far more cost effective.

How much will it cost?  It depends on the vehicle but the Hyundai above was finished in one day for under $250.  (That's both front seats!)

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