Freelander 1 Sorting out scuffed "leather" seats

The leather seats, especially the drivers seat on my Freebie is slightly worn / scuffed. Most people probably could live with it, but they are getting on my nerves, I think I may be a bit OCD!

I called into a local place today to see if there is anything I could buy to re-dye the seats. Once they are dyed, I'll feed them with some kind of cream to get them as good as I can.

The guy in the shop was really apprehensive, and asked if the seats were leather, or some kind of faux leather / PVC type stuff, to which I couldn't answer his question, as I'm not 100% sure myself. As we were both unsure, he was reluctant to sell me any type of dye product, probably in case it knackered the seats up, and set me off on a compensation route for damages!

The seats are Black in colour. What, if any type of dye is best to use to recolour the seats, are all the seats leather, or just the fronts, with a PVC type material used for the sides and rear,,, anyone done theirs????

Thanks in advance.

I used this stuff on my steering wheel and it worked a treat, even though my wheel is the foam type. Might be as well to try it somewhere inconspicuous first tho
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fiebings-...Leather-Neutral-/181725162341?var=&hash=item0
If anyone knows how to fix the common wear hole on the drivers side of a cloth seat I'm all ears.

L666BES said:

The leather seats, especially the drivers seat on my Freebie is slightly worn / scuffed. Most people probably could live with it, but they are getting on my nerves, I think I may be a bit OCD!

I called into a local place today to see if there is anything I could buy to re-dye the seats. Once they are dyed, I'll feed them with some kind of cream to get them as good as I can.

The guy in the shop was really apprehensive, and asked if the seats were leather, or some kind of faux leather / PVC type stuff, to which I couldn't answer his question, as I'm not 100% sure myself. As we were both unsure, he was reluctant to sell me any type of dye product, probably in case it knackered the seats up, and set me off on a compensation route for damages!

The seats are Black in colour. What, if any type of dye is best to use to recolour the seats, are all the seats leather, or just the fronts, with a PVC type material used for the sides and rear,,, anyone done theirs????

Thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

What the seats are covered in depends on the spec. However it should be pretty easy for a professional trimmer to tell the material, simply by looking at it.
SE and HSE have leather but only to the seating surface. Some are smooth leather but generally HSE seat facings are punched with holes.
From memory, sport models had some kind of synthetic leather material. I think sport premium seats have the centre section in leather.
My SE leather is showing signs of wear to the bolster and squab.

I refinished the seats in my HSE using Furniture Clinic products. The seats look like new and I’m very happy with the results.

From memory, this is the process:
1. Sand down any loose or flaking parts
2. Use solvent stripper to take the finish off
3. Fill any holes using filler, secure loose or scuffed areas using thin glue
4. Spray new colour – 2 or 3 coats
5. Spray finish - 2 or 3 coats

The solvent is nasty and I’d recommend using a respirator. The paint and finish is water based and not too bad.

The colour is easy to match because FC knows all the formulas for most cars. The finish is available in four types: gloss, semi-gloss, semi-matt and matt. I used semi-matt as advised by FC for Land Rovers newer than 2005 (mine is 2005). The colour is spot-on but the finish is different as you can see from the headrests in the photo which I didn’t touch. I don’t mind because I refinished all the seats and I think semi-matt looks more refined than the original more shiny finish.

Tips: (1) use a powered sprayer, not the tiny airbrush included in the kit; (2) you will probably need much more paint that suppled, I used about 2.5l of colour and about 1l of finish for all seats.

Before:

After (notice the headrests. only this different in certain light, normally the difference is barely visible):

mine are the same colour as eric16 and mine has been caught down the side , only today I priced the back support one and they are £400.00 plus vat which would be another £80. I will keep looking

Cheers for the replies , much appreciated.

My model is an ES, so not too sure what the make up is of the seats. The main wear is like yours main drivers seat and right hand bolster as you get into the car. Can't wait to get them done, its embarasing when someone gets into the car.

Be careful what treatment you use. When I bought my MGF it had seat covers and for good reason, the seats had been cream and some eejit sprayed them with some black plastic type stuff. The black was flaking off badly and they were a mess. I ended up replacing them.

Thanks Alibro. Yeah, that's why I need to establish whether the part I sit on is leather, or another type of material. If people don't know what they are doing, I don't know why they don't leave things alone, or at least research it first.

Cheers buddy.

It wouldn't have been so bad if it had only been the seats but he also sprayed the door cards and steering wheel. There was overspray everywhere.