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Not difficult at all. I had a 2006 4Runner that had way worse cracks and tears - most dealers have outside leather repair people (similar to the mobile wheel repair people) that come in each week who can repair/replace leather in cars. I took my 4Runner to the guy who was at the Lexus dealer (Tom Wood Lexus in Indianapolis) once a week and he repaired it on the spot in about 2 hours. I didn't go through the dealer because I didn't want the markup, but it cost me $95 for the top piece like yours, and the piece of leather running down the side of the seat.
Of course until the new leather broke in, it looked brand new and made the rest of the seat look older than it did before
Had my seats repaired by the dealership (fix agreed upon pre-purchase; fix done post-purchase). It seems to be more of a problem on colors like cabernet or flaxen. If you are not under the 4yr/50k warranty, it may be tough to get them to fix for free. But as IndyIS said, they indeed have leather specialists that work with dealerships to fix rips, tears, wrinkles, discoloration, etc.
That is such an easy fix. I'm helping a buddy of mine tomorrow. When I bought my RX, it had a rip and hole in the back seat, and the driver's seat was stained with blue jeans. Not sure what happened there, but the car had 16K miles on it and clean otherwise.
I ordered a repair kit from leatherrenew.com, watched a few videos, studded their instructions and went to work. Even I can't find the repairs and it's been three years. Honestly, the toughest thing is applying the colorant without buggering up the stitching. I did the repairs in sections, masking off to one side of the stitches, spraying the area, then allowing it to dry, removing the tape and using a foam applicator to get super close to the stitching without touching them, then doing the same on the other side of the stitching. The colorant is self leveling, so spray or foam applicator makes no difference. The color will level off and look fantastic.
Make sure you use good quality masking tape. it's key to keeping things from seeping under the tape and take your time. You'll be surprised how easy it is to fix seats and you don't even have holes or tears.
Here are pics of last night's repair on an 08 LS. The armrest took us some time to build up. The cracks would open up when you leaned on them, so we had to go easy, get the repairs into the cracks, etc. and the back missing section took several layers to build up. It's not perfect, but 100% better than it was. The leather on the console was pretty stretched out too, so we did our best to shrink the leather a bit. The pics were taken right after we were done spraying and removed the masking. The repaired areas show as lighter than original, but dried to a perfect match. Cost of repair, $40, a few beers and some great conversation.
Here are pics of last night's repair on an 08 LS. The armrest took us some time to build up. The cracks would open up when you leaned on them, so we had to go easy, get the repairs into the cracks, etc. and the back missing section took several layers to build up. It's not perfect, but 100% better than it was. The leather on the console was pretty stretched out too, so we did our best to shrink the leather a bit. The pics were taken right after we were done spraying and removed the masking. The repaired areas show as lighter than original, but dried to a perfect match. Cost of repair, $40, a few beers and some great conversation.
Perfect or not, looks like new to me in these pictures. Well done, and thanks for sharing!
Thanks, doesn't look hard at all. I'm going to test the paint on the bottom side of my headrest first for color match.
How have your seats held up overtime? Has any of the paint/dye worn off?
It's the same dye used to get color on leather in the first place, so if you take your time and prep properly, there's absolutely no reason for it not to hold up as original. The first time I did the repair was on my wife's RX. Bought it off a non-nexus dealer. It was in great shape, but previous owner had drug something across the back seat and ripped across several of the holes in the back seat (connect the dots) and there were heavy blue jean stains on the front. Not sure why the dealer didn't address it, but I got a good deal on it and gave it a shot. That was three years ago and you still can't tell where it was ripped, snagged, stained or other wise.
The trickiest part for me was the seat stitching. I masked right up to the stitching, dye one side, wait for it to dry, then mask again for the other side. That took time, but absolutely no dye got on the stitching, so well worth going slow.
