Hello, I own an 84 244GL wagon in the US. The leather seats are worn pretty bad, and I was wondering if anyone knows if there is a good method or product to use to repair them, if not, it may be time for new seats or seat covers, any advice is appreciated. Thanks
This is supposed to be pretty good...
Just used that on a set of hard 1800 ES seats. It really did soften them a lot, but like new?, no, not that good. Maybe with time and a few more treatments. The dye works quite well, though.
Ron/Champ 6
1963 8E5 Champ (Champ 6) 1962 Lark Daytona Convertible (Boomerang) 1995 VW Passat (Vanilla..yuk) 1994 Volvo 850 (Tilley) 1973 Volvo 1800 ES (An Clar)
If they're cracked about all you can do is have them reupholstered, replace the seats with nicer ones, or get some seat covers.
When I sold my 1800E, the only thing that looked bad was the leather seats. The rest of the car was mint. One thing that I did was interchange the left and right seats so the wear points were hidden.
Your posting is the reason I never will buy a Volvo with leather or a sunroof. Leather seats don't hold up nearly as well as the Volvo's cloth seats and if you don't have a sunroof it can't leak or fail. SInce I have hay fever and us the AC, the sun roof is not very practical anyway. I keep my cars for the long haul and still get a very good resale value.
Doesn't much matter if it's a Volvo or any other car, leather seats just don't hold up for the long haul unless they're well maintained the whole time.
Sunroofs can be a pain too, though I've been lucky and never had any major problems with either of mine.
OK, I guess I better not start whining about the cracked leather on my driver's seat, OR the bad sunroof in my "new" 89 780.
I may have to bite the bullet and put in a non-Bertone seat in it, and possibly just silicone the outside of the sunroof frame, which is quite gone now.
But I know Mr. Bertone will be turning over in his grave when he hears about this....
Maybe I can actually find a good-condition seat top somewhere, if I hunt long enough.
Wish the previous owners had though of the concept of window tint....
That's the first thing I did with this baby when I got it, to prevent further destruction by the sun.
It's not horrendously expensive to have the front seats reupholstered, not cheap by any means but if the rest of the car is nice I'd look into it.
Or you could get some nice sheepskin covers or something.
The sunroof parts are identical to any other 700 series I think, you should be able to get replacement parts easily.
Actually..
Thanks Rusty!
I checked out that site in your post just now, and have been amazed.
I just may try the Leatherique, and see if I can save them. In some areas of the seats, the leather is so hard it feels like it will just crack if pushed on, and they describe that as "cardboard hard" in their directions.
I just thought they were completely fried. But supposedly, they have "crack filler" you can use if later redying the leather, I didn't think that would be an option, but I guess I really don't know all about leather..
Also a good Volvo testimonial there from someone who tried it.
Will advise the group; first I guess I should take pictures of the seats for later reference.
And besides, it's easier to take some snaps then it is to actually work on them, so it will appear I'm busy on them!
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