Automotive Interior Repair with The Interior Guy

Here are a few tips to cleaning those old grungy looking automotive leather seats. Now there are limitations to this, in some cases the seats are just dirty and with a little elbow grease and little know how you have new seats again. But there are the cases where a professional needs to reapply dye to the seat to bring back the original luster. “Rattle cans” as I call them which are aerosol cans of dye that you can buy at your local paint store which if you find the right shade can be used to freshen up a seat where cleaning just wasn’t enough. But I really do discourage this due to most of the dyes sold on the shelf are a lacquer base which can dry the leather out and cause it to crack. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve noticed in the late model Ford and Dodge trucks that the seats hold stains like a magnet. As far as spot cleaning, well good luck. For some reason Ford and Dodge have gone to a really tight woven fabric in their seats, don’t know if its for a cost reason or a cosmetic reason. Whatever it is I don’t like it, and from what I’ve heard around the car lots is that they don’t like the cloth seats either. They all have bad stains, and they are having a time trying to get them out. The bad stains are like water spots in the cloth. Well, the only way I have found to removing the bad stains is by scrubbing the seats with a brush with soap and water, and soaking the entire seat , then extracting the soapy water out with an automotive extractor. Basically what you are doing by soaking the seat is creating one big water spot… I know this sounds weird but it works. Then dry the seats with towels to get some of the moisture out, then turn your truck’s heat on high, close the windows and let it run for about 30 minutes to complete the drying process, because u don’t want a mildewy truck either. So, good luck cleaning your bad stains in your cloth seats, I hope this little trick works for you.

As I search the internet I can’t help to see a lot of self fixes for doing interior repairs. Not to say that they are sub standard or don’t work, it’s just, they are not made to hold up. It’s a quick fix that really doesn’t fix anything. Thats where you have to break down and say to yourself do I want my car to look like it did when I bought it, or do I want to just settle. Well there are other options I promise you. Call a professional, if you don’t know one let me let you in on a small secret, call your local car dealer and ask who they would recommend, don’t just call one either, call around, dealers have their favorites, and thats good too, but this way you have a choice, and some good recommendations from the people you bought the vehicle from. Interior repair is a craft, and with the materials that are being used in vehicles today it is real easy to make a bad thing look like a real bad repaired thing, and look is what it’s all about right. So please guys, call your local auto interior repair guy and save in the long run.

GOT A CRACK IN YOUR SEAT?

Let me show you how the problem started, how to fix the problem, and how to prevent the problem from happening again.

Well of course I’m talking about your leather or vinyl car and boat seats. Read the rest of this entry »