It’s inevitable that after many years your car’s leather seats will become worn. Getting in and out, rubbing your pants against the bolsters, and generally just using them, they can’t help but crack. But that doesn’t always mean reupholstering.
Ammo NYC’s latest renewal video shows the seats of host Larry Kosilla’s own manual Audi R8 brought back to near-new condition. The surprising thing is how similar to paint restoration leather restoration is.
As with a car’s paint, the place to start with seats is with a very, very deep clean, followed by some sanding. The point is to get rid of imperfections and faded dye without doing any damage to the material.
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After that, the color is matched and new dye is sprayed on. Finally, the grain of the leather has to be matched so that the sanded areas don’t look too smooth. The point is to match everything so that the restored part doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb. This is a little more obscure, but by changing air pressure and other variables, the desired look is achieved.
The end result is near perfection, according to Kosilla, though he does warn that such success isn’t always the case. Sometimes, the seats are closer to 85 percent back to normal – and if the leather is farther gone than this, too, reupholstery might be necessary. But this costs half as much and in cases where the wear isn’t too bad could make a lot of sense.