Brcobrem

Hi RX - First Generation forum,

I originally posted this question in the "Automotive Care & Detailing" forum but have had no replies, so I thought I might have better luck in the forum specific to my vehicle. Just for the record, the original post was at https://www.clublexus.com/forums/aut...am-damage.html

Please allow me to repost, as follows:

My 2000 RX300 is one of those "new old" vehicles (ie. older years but very low mileage). The previous owner did little (if any) maintenance on the interior. The good point is that he was the only person who used it, so there's little wear and tear on the "leather" (I read the sticky post about the poly coating used on the Lexus leather).

I used Meguiar's Gold Class Rich Leather Cleaner Conditioner on the seats a month or so ago just for general protectant and UV blocking purposes. Did a nice job imho. That said . . .

I opened the driver's door (left side in USA) and noticed some new "damage" on the seam of the side of the seat back. Looks like this:

https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=0ba96...47%21319&sff=1

I will try attaching the pic to this post also (I tried to embed the Shydrive url but that does not work, the Skydrive pic will not display in the post).

If you look carefully, you can see that it looks likes the "leather" (did they use vinyl on the sides of the seat backs?) is starting to get little cracks above and below the larger cracks where you can see the white backing material.

Any ideas on how this can be repaired (DIY or Pro Only)?

I appreciate your guidance.

Regards,
Brcobrem

hypervish

Not sure how to go about fixing that. Best thing would probably be to take it to a leather specialist in your area.

carguy07

That's pleather/vinyl and they all do that, I would just trim the strands that are sticking out of it and maybe try to seal it under with some clear silicone

bob2200

I had a few places professionally fixed. This was one of them and it is vinyl, not leather. The guy put some clear, thin tape over it, feathered the edges with filler, and then airbrushed on matching color (which they call dye, but really a paint). It only shows in that the stitching is painted over.

dbui

check out this link for Mobil1 hope this help!

http://www.mobiloil.com/USA-English/...Car_Seats.aspx

Brcobrem

Hi hypervish, carguy07, bob2200 and dbui,

I appreciate everyone's replies and suggestions. Dubi's "how-to" link cleared up my curiosity about the vinyl sides on the seat: it's for flexibility. That makes sense to me now.

I'm talking to the people at http://www.leathermagic.com right now and have sent them this photo. Let you all know what they think.

Regards,
Brcobrem

Brcobrem

Ok, here's the reply from LeatherMagic.com (nice people, I called them) . Note that now we're talking about "vinyl repair" and not "leather reapir" :

****BEGIN REPLY
If your vinyl is torn where the threads were holding two pieces of vinyl together, this should be repaired by hand stitching the tear, using our “Hand Stitch Kit” which includes upholstery needles and nylon thread. The use of a repair kit on this type of damage is not recommended since the seam will be filled in by repair compound and will produce an unsightly looking repair.

http://www.leathermagic.com/Pages/HandStitchKit.htm
and
http://www.leathermagic.com/Pages/VINLKIT.HTM

If the tear is beside, or along a seam, then the use of a repair kit is highly recommended. This will produce a permanent bond of the torn vinyl while producing a virtually invisible repair. The cost of the Vinyl Repair Kit is $36.95 + Shipping & Handling. You may place your order on our secure web site, you should be able to directly click on the above links, or call us directly at the toll free number listed below.

Thank You.
Leather Magic Inc
1396 Walkup Ave
Monroe NC 28110
1-800-232-4092
****END REPLY

I found their kit a little less expensive on Amazon:

Note one of the Amazon comments:
"1.) The instructions say to cure the repair compound for 30 -90 seconds. I recommend starting with 30 seconds. I started with 60 seconds, and it melted the vinyl all around the damaged area. The damaged area that was the size of a nickel turned into an area the size of a silver dollar. It made my job a lot harder. If 30 seconds of heating is too short, and the bond doesn't hold, you can always go back and cure the repair compound again.
2.) After curing, allow the area to COMPLETELY COOL. Then remove the graining paper slowly. I was impatient the first time, and removed it too soon. Huge mess. Had to start over again.
3.) Be careful when using the gloss restorer that comes with the kit. This is the last step in the process, and it is optional. I tried it, and it left a grey cloudy residue on the vinyl. I had to use leather cleaner to remove it."

My seam is not split, so I won't need the stitching kit just yet (good to know it exists though). I'll go for their 'LM-2001 Standard Vinyl Repair Kit" discussed above. They get good reviews on their products and tech support too. Let you all know how this pans out.

Regards,
Brcobrem

P.S. Also saw this which might come in handy for cuts, rips, etc:
Liquid Stitch-Liquid Invisible Stitch


Perhaps this for light duty repairs on leather (not vinyl) :
Liquid Leather Color Pen Repair Kit- 7 Colors

The comments suggest the "pen" may not be important, but the other contents in the box are what you're after.

GS01ROD

Hey OP thanks for sharing the info. The leather/vinyl is wearing in some spots on my wife's RX driver seats and arm rests will have to investigate the material and look into the repair. Let us know how it comes out. you have a before pic would like to see an after if you don' t mind.

Brcobrem

Hi GS01ROD,

I'll certainly take some better before/after pics when the repair kit arrives. I'll mention again that is is now going to be a vinyl repair, not a leather repair. I'm going to add the word "vinyl" to the post's title now if I can edit the title just to clarify the topic(s) of the discussion.

Thanks for your interest in this post and it's threads.

Regards,
Brcobrem

Brcobrem

Hi GS01ROD,

Make sure you check out the pinned "all-about-lexus-leather" post at :
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/aut...s-leather.html

Looks like you can bring some of the surfaces back to almost new condition with special leather or vinyl spray paints/dyes. Again, we have to be careful to know if we're working on a vinyl part or a leather part.

Regards . . .

Brcobrem

An Update for those interested:

The LeatherMagic Vinyl Repair Kit arrived a couple days ago. I'll get to that in the coming week or so. In the interim, I read a little more of the Owners manual and made it up to page 107 where they're talking about the SRS airbag system. Please take a look at the pic below. See how it shows something to do with the side airbag on the side of the seat? They're showing the darkened area has something to do with SRS. I'm not going to be working on that middle seam in the darkened area, but I'm going to be pretty close to it with a hot electric patching iron on that front seam for about 30 to 60 seconds at a time. Think I'm ok to proceed on the vinyl patch in this area?

I appreciate your thoughts.

Brcobrem

goldfish

Has anyone used silicone caulk to repair cracks/tear?

carguy07

Yes, I used it to fill in some little chips in the pleather.

Brcobrem

Project Update for those interested:

With the LeatherMagic vinyl repair kit in hand (see 7/127/12 thread above), I asked an artist friend's help to mix the seat color for me (ie. when in doubt, get an expert, right?). Although RC300's my exterior color is called "Mineral Green Opales" (from the original window sticker), I found this link to a black 2000 RX300 that appears to have the same interior color scheme as mine:
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/lex...-8000-obo.html

Btw, the "Mineral Green Opales" looks gray to me, and it's one color grey on top and another grey on the bottom and bumpers. Here's a pic of a similar one:
http://www.iseecars.com/review/Lexus/RX%20300/2000
(Btw, for Lexus/Toyota touch-up paint for this one, the top is 6R6, and the bottom is UCAB7. The VIN will only help the dealer get you the 6R6. I had to do some research to give the dealer the UCAB7 number, and then they ordered it for me.

Back to the vinyl color mix, here's the mix that was made for me. It was mixed outside, in good daylight next to the seat (yes I covered the seat to avoid any "oops" accidents). It yielded perhaps 3/4 teaspoon, which is more than I'll need for this job (btw, you can put the extra in a little empty jar they give you).
1. Started with white: ~2 tip fulls on a pallet knife (a "tip full" is maybe 3/8" X 3/8", or 1cm X 1cm worth).
2. Then brown, one tip full at a time. She said she used perhaps 5 tips to match the seat color.
3. Then yellow, until the brown was "warm enough". She said she used perhaps 5 tips (but that's a guestimate because . . . It started pouring rain suddenly out of nowhere (thanks again Tropical Storm Isaac).We panicked about what to do to keep the door/interior dry and get the mixing job done as fast as possible. So I grabbed a beach umbrella out of the garage and held it over us and the open RX300 door so we could finish, get out of the downpour and avoid electrocution from the lightning bolts and the 6 foot metal umbrella over us. Btw, it was now or never because she was late for a flight and her ride arrived and was beeping the horn to go before they missed the flight.
4. Finally, it was a "little too bright", so she added one more tip full of white, and departed pronto. In the jar, it looks like a perfect match to me.

This all took her about 5 minutes. It would have taken me an hour and I would have made a heck of a mess while I was at it.

I called her on the way to the airport so I could capture her mix "recipe" while still fresh in her mind. She said that although the instructions supplied with the kit said we'd be using some orange for "tans", she didn't add orange because tans can be either green based or red based, and my seat's vinyl side was the green based flavor (so no orange required). I then told her about the "Mineral Green Opales" mentioned as my vehicles formal color and she said that made sense why she didn't need to add the orange. Logically thinking, I would have thought she'd need a touch of green, but I'm no artist either.

In closing, I was able to clean up the pallet knife, my fingers, and a couple white "oops" on the door with a couple drops of of 99% Isopropyl alcohol on a paper towel. (99% is available at most pharmacies, and almost no water so it dries fast).

Now that I have the vinyl mix, I'll get to the repair and post back with some pics. Hopefully there'll be no disaster story (I have a real concern about that heat gun being used so close to that nylon threaded seam).

Regards,
Brcobrem

Brcobrem

Hi,

I finally had time to return to this project around end of December 2012 (4 months later). Better late than never huh?

After all my chatter about the LeatherMagic vinyl repair kit I bought, I decided it was too risky to use:
1) a heated iron neara nylon sewn seam (ie. think melting nylon thread and then a bigger problem), and
2) I was worried about using that heated iron where a SRS airbag was sitting right behind the problem area.

So I came up with this: A cold vinyl repair kit called "Quick 20" "Leather, Vinyl & Plastic". Google "quick 20 leather vinyl repair kit" (no quotes). Here are my project pics:

https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resi...BR2gyhbi6ILFOc
Tip: In Skydrive, you click on one of the pics and it takes you into the viewer where you have more controls. You'll see that I gave the pics descriptive titles to help understand what was going on.

Note that after you mix in the "activator" into your vinyl color mixture, you have only a couple minutes (if that) to apply to the damaged area and apply the textured paper (with release agent on it) on top of your mix before this stuff starts to harden. It was setting up after about two minutes. I physically held down the paper for about 5 minutes, but notice that I was not quite quick enough to get the paper on the compound and had some rough edges and void areas when I lifted the paper off. Although I did not get a pic, I did smear over a second light coat (not using the texture paper over the top as it dried this time), using my finger for better application control. I will mention that repairing a double curved corner surface like this is probably the most difficult repair spot that I can think of to work with. Also note that this vinyl repair compound leaves you with a glossy (and not matte) finish.

This stuff is very durable. I tried to buff it a little with light sand paper and it doesn't even scratch the surface. So the job didn't come out as perfect as I would have liked. However, for my first hack at it, it's good enough. I was going to tape the general area off again and hit it with a little clear matte spray finish, but since I don't even notice the repair these days, I forgot about doing that. No one else notices the light blem either, so I guess I'll consider it a success.

Your mileage may vary. I'd be very interested in hearing about it if others give this cold patch, or even the hot patch, a go.

As always, your comments and suggestions are appreciated.

Regards,
Brcobrem