Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Car upholstery repair tips

By Cheryl L. True

If you want something done right, do it yourself. This saying is true in repairing your car's upholstery where you can save you lots of money.

To start off, always clean the upholstery before doing any repairs. Use upholstery cleaner made specifically for the type of upholstery you have and always follow the manufacturer's instructions.

It's always a good idea to spot test the cleaner in an out-of-the-way place just to be sure it won't ruin your upholstery and add to your problem. You'll be amazed at what a good cleaning agent can do for old upholstery. Sometimes it will reveal potential problem areas that you can repair before they become big.

If sewing or recovering leather seats is not possible, try a leather repair kit that can be found at any auto store. It comes with a plastic substance that you can match to your car upholstery color.

Apply it and let it dry. This can be used in small areas if the color is well matched. Black or white upholstery is the easiest to match.

For repairing vinyl upholstery, don't use glue. The adhesive in glue can actually destroy the foam padding underneath the vinyl upholstery. Instead simply cut a patch of excess vinyl found under the seat and use adhesive specifically made for vinyl upholstery to patch it. Don't forget to follow the adhesive manufacturer's instructions carefully.

If the piping around the seat needs repair, use this simple trick: Take a matchstick and remove the match. Add some contact cement to one end of the match and work it into the damaged area. Apply the cement to the other end and work that end of the stick in. Fold it in as you go if necessary. Make sure you let the cement dry completely before using the seat.

If the problem is too big to handle, leave it to the experts. If not, you may end up damaging instead of saving your car upholstery. For quick and affordable repairs, visit Auto Repair Lorain where the service is good and the price is even better.

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1 comment:

Unknown said...

Your upholstery is everything when you're selling a car! We need to get a few rips and tears fixed for our car. The seats need to be repaired so that we can sell our car. What do you recommend?
http://www.actionupholstery.com.au