DIY Seat Refurb and Recolor

The original gray leather seats in my car were starting to look a little worn with age and had a bit of damage due to wear especially the drivers seat you can see this in more detail in the pictures below. I don’t have the money to get the seats completely re trimmed by Lotus. It was £250 per seat and I don’t have that amount of cash lying about maybe one day as there was some great designs in the brochure the lotus dealer showed me.

I decided to have ago myself to see if I could make the seats a bit more presentable. After a quick search of the internet I came across the answer. I found a website selling a kit to repair the damage and recolor the leather as I now wanted black seats. I decided to give it a go and ordered a Satin Black kit that came with everything I needed for £50.

The first job was to get the seats out of the car; this wasn’t too difficult to do just a bit fiddly. I had to use every extension bar I could find for my ratchet to get the passenger seat out.

Once the seats were out it was time to prep them this was done in 3 stages the 1st involved rubbing them down using with a solvent solution to remove the protective layer applied to the leather. The next stage was to rub it down using alcohol cleaner to remove any of the finish that was not removed by the solvent. This left the seats with a dull matt appearance. The 3rd and final stage was to fill any deep scratches with the leather repair compound and give any raised areas a rub down with some wet sand paper. Once this was done the seats were left for 10 mins for any excess solvent / alcohol to evaporate.

Now it was time to put on the 1st coat of the new colour this is applied with a sponge it can look a bit streaky at first but it was only the first coat. This was then left to dry for 30 mins. This process was repeated until each seat had 3 coats.


Once the 3rd coat had dried it was time to even up the finish using the airbrush that was supplied in the kit. I applied several more coats to the seats using this method (I think 4 in all) leaving 5 mins in between each coat as instructed. Once I was happy with the finish the seats were left for an hour to dry before the next stage.

When the seats were dry it was time to apply the protective finish in effect replacing what I had removed with the solvent and alcohol earlier. In my case I had chosen Satin finish but you can get Matt and Gloss also. The finish is applied using the airbrush and each seat was given a couple of coats. The seats then had to be left for 24 hours before they could be used to allow the finish to fully dry.

Below are some pics I took while doing this project. I was really pleased with how they turned out. If you want a closer look at the seats you may bump into me at one of the NORLOG meets and I would be only to happy to show you.