Leather refurbishment

Looking for some advice on leather (yes I am on the right forum!) My 996.2 has the extended grey leather interior which is 90% fine, however, the two outside bolsters and base on the drivers seat and outside lower bolster on the passenger seat are showing signs of cracking / missing colour coat. I popped into a local specialist who recommended replacing the offending panels for circa £500 with porsche matched new leather. His work is excellent. However, I just wondered if re-coating the existing leather would provide good long term results? Car is a keeper. Regards Ian

All leather is basically painted and lacquered, so theoretically a refurbished finish done properly should be no less durable than replaced panels. I would worry also that replaced panels will be a different colour or texture that does not match the worn-in leather

I've not needed to use them yet, so can't speak from experience, but I've heard good things about ColourLock. Might be worth giving them a call to enquire about their repair services. https://www.colourlock.com/services/our-services their site also has some how to videos, & sell kits if you prefer DIY. If they aren't local for you, then may be worth asking if they can suggest someone nearer you.

I can recommend Furniture Clinic products for a bit of DIY leather repair and colour restoration. Just used their products to completely change the colour of some grey Recaro seats to black. At the same time I repaired some small holes, scuffs and rejuvenate with leather conditioner. Total cost was £100. I used their YouTube tutorials and got some advice over the phone. Very helpful and informative staff. I didn't take loads of pictures, but will do a little post on it later.

Try these guys: http://lttleathercare.com/shop/

I can recommend Colourlock, before and after photo below :thumb:

Is that a graphite grey 996 seat? Looks good, but lighter than the original colour. I have a C4S so there is leather in a lot of places and one thing I'm worried about is a refurbished seat looking a different colour to the rest of the leather on the dashboard / door cards etc. Did you do your steering wheel too?

Give it a go with a furniture clinic or gliptone scuffmaster kit. I've had excellent results with both. You can brush the dye into cracks then sponge the colour over a larger area. You can then feather the edges of the coloured section using the sponge more lightly or even using diluted colourant. The scuffmaster kit comes with toner and gloss additives to achieve a perfect match but I've always found that a good application of leather conditioner over the top hides any minor differences post-treatment. For £15 what have you got lose? If you're not happy with the result you can always go to the trimmer.

I did my entire interior with the Gliptone stuff; it was very easy and very effective, and the colour match was spot on. Under 100 quid and a couple of weekends work.

Some of those DIY results look amazing! Thanks everyone. I'm comfortable giving most things a go so will check the colour spec and get a kit ordered! On some good sections of leather I've given them a wipe with Wilko leather wipes which has given it a clean, satin finish - smell nice too.

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LTTleathercare and colourlock both get great reviews on the various detailing sites I've been reading recently. More for cleaning and protection, rather than full on refurbishment. (The wife has just gone and bought a volvo with white leather interior, I fear my kids will destroy it within 2 weeks - hence I've been doing a lot of research) Hats off to the above pics of those DIY jobs! :bow:

Wow that's some great results. Have you got a link to the Gliptone stuff you used please. Mine is also a grey interior that needs a little bit of tlc. Ta

Interestingly enough I spoke to a Detailer mate yesterday about treating leather in my Cayman before the new owner comes to view it. I have always been very apprehensive to touch the extended leather on the cards and dash. He recommended 'Carbon Collective' cleaner and then treatment, said good results for noobs. No silicon to leave the dreaded shine! https://www.carboncollective.com/?g...x-lCKVy0bYZfiCBwGvziEYiCYerBD9AsaAm53EALw_wcB Got some arriving today. So fingers crossed... having almost bought his M3 E9* last year, I can vouch for the quality of his work. So trust him if he says I can use these products without any risk.

i got the scuffmaster kit i used to do my seats from bespokeleathering.com the guy named john there is on quite a few forums (mostly bmw forums)and gave me a decent discount for being on them too they have used him a couple of times on car s.o.s and i've personally seen some of his custom re-trimming on seats which has been top notch too i've done 3 cars worth of seats now and had fantastic results on all 3 what i would say is though dont just purchase enough to do the one seat as no doubt like mine did it'll end up looking better than your other seats and you'll want to do them all :thumb: happy to put up the pics if you like? they were all black leather though