How about some sticker shock? In the last 6 months I've had the privilege of working on a German and a Japanese vehicle where I was told the price of the bottom cushion seat covers. How about $1,700.00? I'm

serious and the German seat cover was made of vinyl. And I fully expect to keep you informed on the continuing inflation in the years to follow.

 

So it should be obvious that the auto manufacturers aren't targeting the retail market. 90% of retail customers wouldn't even consider this purchase. The captive insurance and warranty customer is footing the bill, and it's easy to see how they can afford to give their vehicles away with this 

business model.

 

So if you live in DFW, I invite you to send me your pictures and let me help you explore all your options. You might want to minimize the wearing away of the driver seat bolster area since this is where most of the repetitive stress occurs. The two issues are dye with subsequent leather wear, and foam compression. Unchecked foam compression also wears the material from the inside when the leather is allowed 

to rub on the steel frame, compromising the quality of the repair.

 

 I recommend a new leather insert in extreme wear situations, even if I lose the job. Because I try to get 2 plus years out of a driver seat bolster repair. I actually favor dye only repairs the majority of the time on that bolster.My goal is repeat customers that believe I'm 

giving thier leather the best care they can get for their increasing in value 

faster than inflation leather interior.

If you live out of my service area in any major city, you could probably

find at least  20 people that want your business. If you do some research

you should be able to find a technician or 2 with 10 plus years experience or 

so who can articulate these points I am sharing with you.

 

www.FixMyLeather.com

 

 

 

 

How about some sticker shock? In the last 6 months I've had the privilege of working on a German and a Japanese vehicle where I was told the price of the bottom cushion seat covers. How about $1,700.00? I'm

serious and the German seat cover was made of vinyl. And I fully expect to keep you informed on the continuing inflation in the years to follow.

 

So it should be obvious that the auto manufacturers aren't targeting the retail market. 90% of retail customers wouldn't even consider this purchase. The captive insurance and warranty customer is footing the bill, and it's easy to see how they can afford to give their vehicles away with this 

business model.

 

So if you live in DFW, I invite you to send me your pictures and let me help you explore all your options. You might want to minimize the wearing away of the driver seat bolster area since this is where most of the repetitive stress occurs. The two issues are dye with subsequent leather wear, and foam compression. Unchecked foam compression also wears the material from the inside when the leather is allowed 

to rub on the steel frame, compromising the quality of the repair.

 

 I recommend a new leather insert in extreme wear situations, even if I lose the job. Because I try to get 2 plus years out of a driver seat bolster repair. I actually favor dye only repairs the majority of the time on that bolster.My goal is repeat customers that believe I'm 

giving thier leather the best care they can get for their increasing in value 

faster than inflation leather interior.

If you live out of my service area in any major city, you could probably

find at least  20 people that want your business. If you do some research

you should be able to find a technician or 2 with 10 plus years experience or 

so who can articulate these points I am sharing with you.

 

www.FixMyLeather.com

 

 

The strength and durability of a top grain leather are derived from the thousands of interlocking fibers that move and stretch as the material gets sat on. Similar to the strands working in unison to make a rope strong enough to lift heavy objects. If you want to extend the useful life of leather, your first concern is to make sure the leather fibers stay plumped up with a natural leather conditioner, or with a museum-grade not so natural leather conditioner. I don't care for any of the big name crude oil-based products. Anyway as the leather gets sat on and stresses out it starts to get breaches in the finish surface. These breaches allow the conditioner to soak into the leather fibers. When you condition new leather, you're mostly cleaning the leather, as the oils can't really get to the fibers at this stage of the leather lifespan. 
I use leather conditioner and a sponge and or toothbrush to clean as the oils do a great job emulsifying dirt and grime. Having leather conditioner in the fibers helps the leather repel sweat also. When sweat soaks into the leather, cracking and warping can occur. When left unchecked too long, refinishing may not correct this problem and replacement of the leather sections may be your only option. Sometimes my customers ask how often they should condition their leather. I know most people are busy so I tell them at least once before and once after our hot Texas summer to mitigate sweat issues.  

http://uphfix.com/leatherinvestment.htm

Nearly everybody has seen defective leather furniture or you know somebody that has bought it. A reputable retailer will disclose to their customers if you're not buying a top grain genuine leather. Others don't know what they’re selling to you and some don't care. Nevertheless, if you buy these products and the materials disintegrate after a year most manufacturers will flat tell you they can't do anything for you. The insurance companies know these materials are used in 80% - 90% of the leather/vinyl market, and they have no problem turning down claims based on manufacturer defect. So the insurance is bogus. More on that at a later time. The disintegration is noticeable in the high traffic areas of the furniture in about 5 years. They make tons of money because the coatings or finishes they use can be rated 50,000 -100,000 double rubs in the 
laboratory. That's why when you have a failure it spreads so fast because all of the real quality is in the micro-finish. There’s a lawsuit in California against a giant retailer. At issue is whether these guys should disclose the percentage of leather actually used on upholstery. The product in question which I can’t name has only 17% leather in it. That leaves a lot of room for glue. I'm frustrated because I'm getting more and more of these calls and you can't save these materials. I found a Wiki link that is of some help. It's mostly about apparel type leather, but there is some info on furniture leather. Here it is for you do it yourselfers.
http://www.wikihow.com/Identify-Genuine-Leather
If you're buying new leather furniture and you live in DFW it could be a 
good investment to hire me and let me show you how to identify top grain
 leather and avoid the fake, even when they sneak it on the side of the 
cushion. This still could be an easy $5000 sale to them and by the time you find out you've been cheated they hide behind carefully worded contracts and you might still be making payments. 

http://uphfix.com/

Hi I’m Steve and I’ve been doing upholstery repair in DFW since 1979.
I work on a lot of leather and some vinyl and plastic repair. I spent 
20 years servicing used car dealers but the temporary mindset of the
industry bothered me so I have spent the last 16 plus years doing insurance
and retail work. Let’s just say that I like a customer that cares how long
a repair is going to last. I’m going to give you honest answers. If
you’re taking bids and the companies you’re considering are
talking in vague terms to conceal their inexperience, 
or trying to put the hard close on you, give me
a call. I’ll help you and give you easy to understand info so you can
make the best decision, even if a repair is not your best option.

www.uphfix.com

The auto textile industry has changed and it looks like there is no going back. The experiment started with European vehicle seating back in about 2004,most of the rest of the foreign manufacturers in about 2008, and the domestic manufacturers in about 2013. These leather/vinyls were promoted as stain resistant and or abrasion resistant.

Sure … if you spill fingernail polish on some of these materials, you could clean it up using your favorite polish remover, and not hurt the leather/vinyl finish. At least thru the warranty period of the vehicle and quality of stain resistance varies from car maker to car maker. I’m not so sure of the abrasion resistance benefits as I still get plenty of calls from people needing help with their driver seat wear issues.

I’ve worked most of the last 15 years doing insurance repair work. To charge for a job the repair has to look 100% and have a lifetime guarantee. This was pretty easy to accomplish on broken glass damage until the materials changed. So my attention shifted from leather/vinyl repairs to plastic. About the same time the door panels were being made mostly of plastic.

To finance this new technology the parts inflation ballooned an easy 200% – 400%.

So a seat cover that used to cost $500 - $600 could be now $1000 - $2000. I didn’t stutter, this price is for one seat cover. So double that for the bottom cushion and the backrest. In my humble opinion this knocks 95% of American consumers out of the seat cover market. So that leaves the insurance companies who don’t have a choice, If they can’t get a suitable repair then they have to buy the new part. This captive market has benefited the manufacturers millions of extra dollars while inflating the average consumer out of the market.

Now the repair suppliers have made available primers to overcome the non-stick properties of the new leather/vinyls and they solve some problems. They certainly have helped car dealers continue to refurbish their inventories. Because the driver seat gets the most traffic, the dye on the outside edge impact area might only last 6 months or a year. I personally don’t think a gummy layer of primer ads durability compared to the old technology leather seating that didn’t need primer in the first place.

I believe the best way to repair and dye these new leathers is to remove the offending non-stick dye down to the raw leather and start fresh. If you're going to have work done it would be wise to find out if your tech can perform an adhesion test, and has experience working on difficult leathers.

http://uphfix.com/

    I’ve bid a slew of jobs this summer; one of these couches was purchased 4 years ago.

It was 1 of a pair purchased at a big name reputable retailer. She spent $1800 on the pair. Her 12-year-old granddaughter was standing on the couch and her foot went through the seam, causing an 8-inch tear.  Sometimes when the kids run on top of the upholstery, quality leather might show stretch damage, but this piece ripped on the dotted line. When she asked me if I could hand stitch the damage, I told her the seam might come out wavy. She said that was better than a $500 insert, so I tried to close the tear. My problem was that this leather wouldn’t hold a stitch. My thread pulled right through this brittle leather. Apparently $900 doesn’t buy a quality leather couch anymore. The new normal is probably closer to $1500.  If she had bought the insurance, it probably would have expired. So the lesser of two evils would be to pay up for top grain leather.

   Another situation I’ve bid twice is when a medium to large size dog gets his paw stuck on a cushion and rips the leather. I will update with pictures later, but in both situations the leather ripped from 9 inches to 2 feet in length. One of my customers bought his couch for a thousand dollars from a big name chain store. He lucked out and bought the insurance. His couch was only a year old but the claim got denied which is why he called me. I went over to his house to do a hand stitch and noticed the back of this so-called leather had a cloth backing. He originally thought the dog ripped the leather with his teeth, which is why the insurance company denied his claim. But when I took a close look at the tear I couldn’t see any teeth marks. So I told the customer he needed to re-submit the claim using me as his consultant. The company conceded and gave him a full store credit.

   On another bid a construction worker sent me pics I’ll update with later, but this so called leather just started falling apart after a couple of years. Especially where he sat most frequently while watching TV.

   I’ve done some research and can’t find much negative info on bonded leather. It might just be too new to show up on Internet forums yet. I have only just become aware of the proliferation of this style of construction a few months ago. So I am making these assumptions. If you have no pets or children, and don’t sweat too much on this leather you might be just fine buying bonded leather furniture, but I’m not chancing it. I have a leather couch that still looks new after 16 years. It all depends on whether you really consider leather upholstery a legitimate investment.

 

Correction Update:       11/10/11

   I got a phone call from a customer who was hoping I could save his “blended leather” as the salesman described the living room set he purchased from a big name furniture chain store. I stand corrected when I said you could protect yourself if you buy an extended warranty for new furniture made of bonded or blended leather. It seems the warranty companies have caught on and are now protecting themselves with regard inferior quality materials used to make the furniture they insure. This customer was horrified to see the leather finish coming off in big sheets after he owned it for a couple of years. So he called the warranty company and they immediately denied his claim because his problem wasn’t caused by some accident. They advised him that he needed to go back to the manufacturer and make a claim. The manufacturer only offered a year warranty and he was two years out. The customer got shammed and it was all perfectly legal. So if you’re not thinking short term I wouldn’t buy any furniture labeled “Bonded Leather” or “Blended Leather”.

 

http://uphfix.com/leatherinvestment.htm

It’s almost better to do no maintenance if you ever plan on doing work on your leather upholstery. I know that sounds redundant, but the silicones and mineral oils in the most popular leather conditioner products can cause irreversible problems that affect the adhesion of new dye and repairs. It is possible to remove these contaminants on a solid leather, but it’s considerably more work and a lot more huffing of dangerous flammable chemicals. The real problem occurs when perforated leather gets saturated with silicone or mineral oil. The holes create a delicate situation that makes it just about impossible to do any serious cleaning. There is a possible danger of the leather fibers unraveling because the leather edge is exposed.

I’m not saying that if you ever use these products the adhesion potential is affected forever. I think most people use these products very infrequently, which doesn’t bother me in the least. My biggest gripe is when I’m asked to do leather worn all the way through repairs for the auto resale market. Usually I get these vehicles after the detail cleaning is done, and the leather has a fresh application of who knows what. Once a leather wear spot has been saturated with a run of the mill silicone or mineral oil product it’s really a disservice to the next customer to cover up the saturated leather with a repair. It is impossible to prep correctly because the chemicals get to the back of the leather because of the open tear. I’ve seen fresh repairs separate because of a lack of adhesion. As soon as the seat gets used and the leather stretches the separation occurs in this situation.

It’s worse with some of the big name leather cleaner/conditioner combination products. First I saw the color get bleached on a 06 Ford Mustang leather. I was asked to correct this problem, and I could not get the silicone out of the seat. The job was plagued with fish eyes. I know the temptation is great to do this type of job yourself, and my cleaner/conditioner is more expensive than the big name product, but in this example the customer would have saved more money using my product. Not to mention the adhesion was compromised with the off the shelf product.

http://uphfix.com/leatherinvestment.htm

I visited my Audi dealership Friday and saw another rookie mistake you should know about. Yes the experienced pre-owned manager got perpetrated on, but in his defense it was a time-lapse mistake, so it wasn’t noticeable initially. There were 4 problems with this job.

1. Lacquer based leather paint was used.
2.  The tan color was mixed wrong. After a few weeks the unstable red fades out in the hot sun and leaves an ugly green color behind (yellow, red, black & white).
3. The plastic trim adjacent to the leather, where the seat belt loops through was not covered up and got painted. Getting paint to stick to plastic is an extra step, so it was already rubbing off from people scooting into the seat.
4.  In the customers favor the paint was lightly spray dusted. With normal use the color might possibly wear completely off in six months. The exception is a spot on the passenger seat bottom where the paint was applied heavier to cover a gouge in the leather.

I got a call from my Honda dealership last week. I went to look at a 04 Honda Accord, driver seat worn leather bolster for a Service customer.  As a rule I turn down blown leather bolsters, especially when the job is on a vehicle over 5 years old. I’ve never read an auto forum thread that had anything good to say about a driver seat bolster repair by the way. I will do a dye only repair on a bolster that isn’t worn all the way thru, and two weeks ago I was lucky enough to work on the nicest 02 Mercedes 500 series I’ve ever seen, (it was around 9 ½ years old). My Service writers know the limitations of leather repair, and ordinarily they wouldn’t ask me to fix a driver seat that looked like this one, but this seat had an airbag. My rep told me that because of the airbag the leather cover was over $800. Add labor and your total is over $1000, just for the lean-back! Add the bottom cushion, and your total is around $1500. I was shocked.

  My first reaction was to call the shop that does their warranty upholstery work to see what a couple of small panels would cost to insert. They said no can do. Because of the special break away stitch; they quoted me the same price to swap the whole cover out. Apparently it’s a tough job finding a shop that is willing to do an insert job over a seat airbag.

That makes maintaining your leather upholstery with the right products more important than ever.  If you wax the exterior paint regularly than you might see the logic in the simple steps you can take to keep up your leather upholstery. Proflex ALC Leather Conditioner gets fresh tannery oils to the leather fibers, and that will make your leather more wear and chemical resistant. If you do nothing else, I recommend at least treating the driver seat before the weather gets hot. That would only take a couple of minutes. Then if you look closely, the leather wear spots would darken enough to notice. If you keep fresh dye on these spots, that would go a long ways to preserving your expensive to replace leather seat.