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Upholstery Fixes

Preventative and restorative tips

It's inevitable: you keep a car long enough to amortize the purchase price and that nice, rich, good-smelling upholstery will begin to deteriorate, often despite our best efforts to keep it supple. Every new car owner makes vows of maintenance as they're driving off the car lot but let's face it, life happens. UV rays dry out the dash; road contaminates slosh up on door panels, and kids, pets, and packages can play havoc with that smooth upholstery.

When that first stain, crack, fade or rip appears, we chastise ourselves for falling down on all those preventative measures. Rather than fall into the non-productive guilt thing, it's now time to leap into action and fix the situation.

Pro Route

The obvious and easiest, yet more expensive, way to fix frayed upholstery is to look up trim shops in your local yellow pages. These professionals can replace the original carpets, seat upholstery, dash, door panels, and soft tops, or give you a custom job that turns your vehicle into a gentleman's club, if that's your taste. The next easiest way out of the sick upholstery predicament is to simply cover it up. If your dash looks like the Sahara, there are dash kits that can give your interior a completely new look. But if you're not all that enamored by the thought of an anodized aluminum or carbon fiber dash, you're better off following the preventative path.

Whether made of vinyl or leather, the covering material is drawn very tightly across the dash. A regular application of some form of automotive moisturizer is a minor price to pay compared to the cost of replacing the dash material.

Undercover

Seat covers appear to be a simple solution. If the cover's job is to camouflage little tears in the original upholstery, it's best to do some form of repair job on such little flaws. The sort of repetitive abuse car seats take is what causes tears in the first place. Since the covers do nothing to reduce this repetitive in-and-out motion of driver and passenger, the little tears will keep getting bigger and bigger under that snazzy new cover.

There are covers that mesh well with lifestyles. Neoprene, the same material used in wet suits, cleans easily and isn't impacted by air temperature; sheepskin is comfortable but not particularly suited for an active lifestyle unless you've got a live-in groomer. Leather or vinyl that has taken on the texture of a dried-apple doll can be restored, if not to full, youthful luster, at least back enough years to be presentable. Check the local auto parts store shelves for the appropriate products.

Kit Car

Once those deep wrinkles have evolved into actual tears, there is still hope in the form of both vinyl and leather repair kits. These types of do-it-yourself repair kits are definitely not interchangeable. Leather, obviously, is animal skin, whereas vinyl is a manmade, plastic-based material. The adhesive methods used to repair leather or vinyl are completely different and either won't work or can damage the original material if misused.

Don't assume you can whip out a perfect repair job. One kit available on the Internet comes with a mini palette that allows you to color match your original leather. By its very nature, color matching is not a quick and easy task; it requires some degree of patience and a good eye. The kits come with color matching instructions, but once you get started you'll realize just how many variations of "brown" there are. Colorblind car owners need not apply for this job. Once you've conquered this hurdle, the rest of the process should be a snap. The repair compound adheres to the leather and has the same flexible, soft characteristics of the original upholstery.

Vinyl repair kits come in two basic forms: a cold process style, and a pro-style repair process. The cold process, best used on small holes, minor tears, or abrasions, chemically dissolves the vinyl fabric to permanently bond the damaged areas back together. The formula is clear, so there's no color-matching dilemma.

The pro-style kits include compounds that are heat cured, basically welding the vinyl back together. The compounds, like the leather kits, include basic colors that can be combined for color matching. These kits even include graining tools to duplicate the vinyl finish. Hypothetically, once the edges of the vinyl rip have dissolved and bonded to the repair compound, the finished repair should be able to take daily stress without relapsing.

So there you have some of the options available when your upholstery starts to show wear and tear. The beauty of these kits and covers is the extra life you can get out of your car's original equipment.