Leather Seat Re-Dying

[BOBINYELM@xxxxxxx]

I imagine more than a few of us have been disappointed with the leather on 
our cars, especially the scuffing off of the color on dark seats (BMW leather 
is surface colored). I have been reluctant to try spray-on dyes for obvious 
reasons (like, they'll ruin the seats, or flake off), but am readying a 733i 
I bought at an auction for sale and though it couldn't look worse than the 
well worn blue leather already looked. 

I bought some SEM brand vinyl spray paint (they have a blue that is an exact 
match) and was determined to give it a go. I first scrubbed the seats with a 
lacquer thinner soaked rag to remove any treatments possibly put on by the 
former owner and to soften the existing finish for a good bond (I hear light 
sanding with dry 320 does the same, but was reluctant to do this). That had 
the benefit of disolving the OEM color finish and uniforming it on the 
leather. At this point the rear seats already looked 100% better (they had no 
use cracks, only fading). I heated the can to 125 deg F (this allows better 
dye atomization) and applied several light applications to all seats.

Wow! Even the driver's seat, which had the typical creasing with no color in 
the creases, looked great! The others looked like new. I did my best on the 
first one sprayed to see if the finish would flake off or otherwise fail. I 
couldn't make it do so.

One can ($4.00) did the entire car and I couldn't be more pleased. 

Bob

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