Leatherique Seat restoration

[shogun]

For those who want to try it
http://home.insightbb.com/~todd.kenyon/leather.htm
and here
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=204374&highlight=dye+seats

[BigKriss]

For those who want to try it
http://home.insightbb.com/~todd.kenyon/leather.htm
and here
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=204374&highlight=dye+seats
are there any writeups on how to take the seats out with the electronic memory control function? If a DIY job was in order, it would take a few days to do, you would have to drive around with one front seat.

[Gayle]

Whit has previously posted pictures of what his leatherique job looked like with the passage of time. It looked great in the beginning but didn't hold up. He was satisfied with the oil and cleaner but but didn't recommend the repair stuff. Whit--time to post again.

[JonE]

It worked pretty good for me!

[bondheli]

Umm "Here (below) are the seats one year later."
Different colored seats, interior panels, and carpet....?
This looks like BS to me.

[DaCan23]

In this months Roundel, Mark Jon Calabrese's column which is covering his E30 M3 Warsteiner restoration, is about him using Leatherique to restore the seats. Was a nice little write up.

[granit_silber]

That's just the difference in the light available for the photograph. The first photo was taken late in the day with no flash. The second was taken towards mid-day with a flash.
-ashley

[bondheli]

That's just the difference in the light available for the photograph. The first photo was taken late in the day with no flash. The second was taken towards mid-day with a flash.
-ashley

Look to be 2 different shades of interior to me.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/bondheli/seat1.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/bondheli/seats1yr.jpg

[uscharalph]

Look to be 2 different shades of interior to me.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/bondheli/seat1.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/bondheli/seats1yr.jpg
That's got to be more than differnce in light.

[pyro]

no its not look at the stuff pluged into the cigeret lighter its the same in both cars unless he moved it from one car to the next and took both pictures its gotta be the same car.

[uscharalph]

no its not look at the stuff pluged into the cigeret lighter its the same in both cars unless he moved it from one car to the next and took both pictures its gotta be the same car.
That doesn't mean they're the same seats, but they prbably are. Looks like he added some m///// badges to the seats also.

[uscharalph]

Also I like tan, but I don't like that yellowish color in the bottom pictures.

[Kalevera]

For those of you who can't wait for my memory seat/mirror/column writeup on BMW4LIFE.com...

I've said it before and I'll say it again. If the seat has cracks through the leather itself (not DYE cracks; cracks in the actual hide), there's very little that any restoration process can do to help the seat.

I studied Todd Kenyon's project prior to undertaking my own. I thought that perhaps by following the instructions to the T, I could avoid what happened to his seats. Well, my week long restoration project didn't turn out so well in the long run...read: 3 months after the fact...and I ended up replacing the seats completely.

A few thoughts:

- I think leatherique's preparation products are excellent: prestine clean, rejuvenator oil, and the stripping agent are all very good. Everything was fine until I started crack filling and dye-ing.

- Water based dyes just aren't as durable as whatever the manufacturer uses (shellac? oil?) That and the plasticizers in their product result in a tacky (and in my case, HARD) to the touch final product.

- Bill once said that leatherique's customer service isn't so good. I didn't agree with him until they lost my credit card number and took an extra week to ship an order that should've arrived in a day (I lived 2 hours away from them). Then, I started receiving poorly written emails from customer service. More recently, the owner of an influential BMW tuning company told me how they'd lost his order and gotten testy. Then I showed him my seats. Then he canceled his order. Go figure.

There's only so much neglect a hide can take before it's done. It's cheaper to just replace the seat than go through all of the shenanegans of "restoration" when the leather is cracked. Case in point: leatheriquing my seats -- $130 + my time (infinitely more valuable); replacing the seats completely -- $0 + my time.


Finally, for whatever it's worth, there are a few pictures of seats hacked up by the leatheriquing process on one of my photo pages:

http://photobucket.com/albums/v736/suzpectx/

More to come in a few weeks when the writeup is online.

best, whit