I just had a leather restoral guy repair the front seat leather/vinyl on my 2002 RX300. I think I lucked out with the company I selected and I'm really happy I didn't try to do it myself. It was obviously way beyond my capabilities to get a professional look. Some areas had the leather finsh worn off, others had minor leather cracking, and others had vinyl minor rips. And, I thought I had taken good care of it, but 10 years of use tooks it's toll.

Those of you in South Florida can check out my posting on the Florida ClubLexus forum. I thought I'd let you know that there are alternatives to DIY that are in the realm of resonable price (at least in economically depressed areas like South Florida).

 

The leather in my RX is perfect, literally everywhere except for the driver's side arm rest. That is worn.
The steering wheel is pretty worn, I want to try restoring the steering wheel this summer. I will eventually create a thread on this.

 

Can you point to the web link from the other forum.

 

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/flo...e-broward.html

 

Any Pictures?

 

Mine is nearly 14 years old, 150,000 miles, and the leather has some character lines, but looks great with very little care. Maybe it's the color, mine is gray. The creme color seems to wear harder. On rare occasions I would clean with either Armor All, McGuires (best when you can find it) other leather/vinyl cleaner, or even furniture polish on a clean rag. I think any good quality leather and vinyl cleaner is your best defense, along with care not to poke or tear with things in your pockets and such. I do keep a towel on the seat tied around the headrest, as I dislike sitting directly on leather anyway regardless of cold or warm weather. I've always had the steering wheel covered with an inexpensive leather cover from Pep Boys that you have to stitch on yourself. It still looks great, and has a superior feel and grip. I thought the leather and vinyl in this car wears really well, I really don't have any worn spots, except where I've bumped the headliner when loading cargo, and even those scuffs are really minor.

 

What is the best option for rip and crack leather on the seats? Leather tapes?

 

There may not be a "best", just trade-offs between looks and cost. What the Professional did on mine was use filler on the minor leather cracks and very thin tape with filler feathering the edges for the small tears in the vinyl. Then, matching "dye" applied with an airbrush. He used some glue to reduce the wicking on some spots where the leather dye had flaked off, before airbrushing.

It really wasn't as bad as it sounds. Most of the dye flaking was at the center of the driver's seat back where the seams converge. The vinyl tearing was by the seam with the leather where the seatbelt travels and on the door-side edge where my 200 lb. weight has flexed the cushion many times.

 

Do you have pictures of the steering wheel? Like I mentioned above, my steering wheel is starting to wear a little.