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Subject: How to redye and refinish the water buffalo leather seats Author: DavidC (moderator) : member since December, 2003 : 12931 posts Posted on: 2004-01-27 04:04:31

My '86 735i is lacking in exterior beauty, but one of the reasons that I purchased it last summer was because it had a blue leather interior (my favorite interior leather color) that was in pretty good shape. The front seats were a bit worn and faded, though there were no cracks or tears and the surface wasn't slick or shiny. The rear seats had hardly been used, but I went ahead and refinished them, too, so that the color would match. As you'll see, the results are fantastic and far less expensive than buying replacement leather or seats.


Here is a closeup of one of the driver's seat. In it, you can easily see the worn armrest, the discolored wrinkles and fading.


The first step is difficult to watch. They use 400-grit sandpaper to level out the more pronounced wrinkles in the leather.


The leather seat after sanding.


Next, all of the plastic trim pieces were taped off to protect them from dye overspray.


Here the dye is being applied using a pressurized spray nozzle. The tricky part seems to be matching the color properly. To do that, the restorer used the back of one of the headrests, which he said was the least likely part of the interior to change color over the years (mostly because it is protected from sun exposure). The dye is applied in thin layers, with each layer being allowed to dry for 10 minutes before applying the next one.


Before dying, and as needed between layers of dye, a putty-like compound was applied to the more pronounced wrinkles and irregular spots in the surface of the leather. This was allowed to dry for 10-15 minutes, then lightly sanded and, finally, spayed with dye again.


The final product! The refinished front and rear seats. The flash makes parts of the seats shine but in natural light they are not shiny or slick at all. They look like new seats again.


After the seats have dryed for 24 hours, it's ok to apply generous amounts of Lexol to protect the leather and make it more supple. The dye tends to dry out the leather, so several passes with Lexol over the next few days will keep them looking and feeling new.

In summary, if your seats look faded or cracked, consider hiring a leather restoration person to rejuvenate them. The cost in for this job was a few hundred dollars, but the results are outstanding and it's far more economical than new leather.

David Cecil
Lexington, KY
Titanium silver '01 750iL, 92k miles
Oxford green '97 740iL, 184k miles
Alpine white '92 750iL, 95k miles (for sale)
Charcoal gray '86 735i, 101k miles (for sale)

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