Recolouring leather interiors

[Flying machine]

How do-able is it to change the colour of a good condition (but unappealing) leather interior. The plan would be to go darker - seats, door cards, dash etc. Would a product such as liquid leather do the job?

If anyone has any pictures(good and bad) to post of before and after, as well as advice I'd be very grateful!

[craigjm]

You can do it but best really to leave it to the professionals. I have seen some really bad colour changes done with leather spray and paints and other leather treatments and none of them really work. What colour is it and what do you want to change it to?

[french dave]

HI,have a look at furniture clinic web site im just about to re-colour my seats in tvr.kit delivered seems excellant -easy to use. dave

[7even]

There's two methods, dye and paint, the dye will last longer as it penetrates the leather rather than sitting on top as paint does. There is a flaw in the theory though, you need to know if the original leather is painted or dyed, as dye wont take on top of paint, but paint will to dye.

As with everything its all in the prep, if its done correctly it should last a considerable amount of time and wear. Another plus is if your doing the whole lot you wont have any colour match issues to worry about.

[Flying machine]

Thanks for the tips. I do fancy giving it a go myself,l but know that if I want a half decent job it'll have to be done professionally.

french dave said:

HI,have a look at furniture clinic web site im just about to re-colour my seats in tvr.kit delivered seems excellant -easy to use. dave

Thanks for the recommendation - I've requested a quote for both a recolour and also a retrim

[Mr_B]

I got a pair of cheap seats to try just this on. I also got the Furniture Clinic kit for re-colouring seats and have so far done one seat with very good results.

If you watch their Youtube videos, they give an idea of the work involved. I found you need to strip off all the old colour with their solvent to avoid it looking like plastic. The first small problem came when I found the solvent supplied in the kit really wasn't enough to do this. To be fair the trial seats I have, have been re-coloured before so it did require a lot of cleaning to get back to just the leather.
Second problem was the two can of airbrush propellant weren't nearly enough enough to do the pair of seats when split down to their 4 parts each making one seat.

If I were doing a full interior, I would buy an airbrush compressor and by the parts of the kit you need individually and with more solvent. It takes a decent amount of time to get good results, and as someone said, it's all in the prepping, but it can be done and you can save a fair chunk of money if you have the time on your hands.

[kds keltec]

As said above really ,

i use liquid leather scuff master and flexi coat , for colour changes

here is what can be achieved .

not black but very dark grey




shows its not black





and after black and blue to lighten up and make the car one off .

even colour glove box lid





The car was worked on by us over a year ago around 15 months , the seats are in constant usage and the passenger had a dog sitting on the seat most days , has no signs of any ageing at present , been left outside with roof down in rain / sun and kids on school run too.

a sneeky outside photo of complete finished car



and inside in sun light





as with anything paint its all in the prep work and time taken to carry out such a job


I think it can transform a car


kelly