Re: Interior swap / black leather questions

[harrison <hsapir@multiverse.com>]

Of the things I've noticed about Audis, one of them is that the leather
seats hold up very well. With the exception of my left bolster on my own
seat. The 5000 series in particular had some nice thick leather that lasts
for years.

harrison

btw- I expect some backlash from listers who had problems with their seats.

Smith, Kirby A wrote:

> Craig (AudiJeep@aol.com) wrote
>
>   Also, to anybody out there with black leather, how does it wear (i.e
>   fading from sun, etc). Thanks.
>
> Both my 88s have black leather.  Neither showed much sun fading, if any,
> but I didn't see the cars new.  (Its possible the seats were supposed to
> be Navy, but the plastic parts of the interior were black, so I used
> black.)  There were some scratches, and significant wear on the driver's
> side left seat bolster.  These were repaired with leather dye bought
> from a shoe repair business.  This dye is _very_ black, and contains
> alcohol and MEK.  I diluted it considerably to avoid contrast problems
> with the seat leather, and deployed it over the entire seats with a rag,
> with emphasis on the scratched/worn (whitish) areas.  Any excess can be
> cleaned up with denatured (ethyl) alcohol.  After the dye dried, I used
> Connoly Hide Food on the leather (Lexol or Zymol should be equivalent
> for this purpose).  This should be allowed to soak in and then the
> excess wiped off with a cloth the next day.  There was some slight black
> transfer onto the white cloth, so seat wiping is needed to minimize dye
> transfer to clothes, but the result is worth it.
>
>          ....  Kirby  (kirby.a.smith@lmco.com)
>                    New Hampshire, USA
>                       2 X 1988 90q