Best Dye To Use On Seats

dnbonds · Apr 4, 2014

I am starting on my interior finally! I am using Duplicolor Red and Black paint for the dash and door panels and it seems to be working out very well. It scratches off if you try to but I'll live with touch-ups here and there.

Anyway, would this Duplicolor from autozone be ok for the seats? The bottle says you can use it for carpets also but I'm not so sure about the seats. I'll be dyeing the suede part (front of the seat) red with the vinyl, sides, and back of the seat black.

Thanks!

Virtual · Apr 4, 2014

Interesting timing on this thread.. I'm just now thinking about something similar on my end.

In my case though I have leather seats (though I'm pretty sure it's vinyl sides and back). I've had seat covers on them to keep them in decent shape, but over years the dark color of the covers has discolored the leather. Between that and some cracking they look worse than they really are. So I'm wondering what kind of dye might revive them? Any suggestions are welcome.

Note: Of course my darned seats are white.. In case you are wondering I can't honestly recommend that anyone should ever buy a car with a white interior. White looks totally awesome, but only for about a week after you worked your arse off to get it looking great.

Noobz347 · Apr 4, 2014

VHT dye

90lxwhite · Apr 4, 2014

I was thinking about this same project too. I read a post where a guy used the duplicolor on carpet and he said it took a can and a half to do a foot or so and be said it was clumpy.

dnbonds · Apr 4, 2014

My carpet is done for, I wouldn't even re-use it if I steam cleaned it. I bought the ACC Mass Back Black Carpet from LMR Going to install next week hopefully.

The VHT Dye on summit racing says vinyl, not sure if it would work on the suede part. Has anyone tried it on suede?

Thanks for the pointer! I think the satin black VHT Dye would look great on the vinyl part

dnbonds · Apr 5, 2014

Actually, I have some suede samples from TMI. I'll test it out and see how it works.

gearheadboy · Apr 5, 2014

Virtual said:
Interesting timing on this thread.. I'm just now thinking about something similar on my end.

In my case though I have leather seats (though I'm pretty sure it's vinyl sides and back). I've had seat covers on them to keep them in decent shape, but over years the dark color of the covers has discolored the leather. Between that and some cracking they look worse than they really are. So I'm wondering what kind of dye might revive them? Any suggestions are welcome.

Note: Of course my darned seats are white.. In case you are wondering I can't honestly recommend that anyone should ever buy a car with a white interior. White looks totally awesome, but only for about a week after you worked your arse off to get it looking great.

I had an 88 Vert GT years ago. Red and silver with a white leather interior. Of course it was shot. I had my upholstery shop do a nice white vinyl that looked like leather with a red soft canvas in the center where you sit and matching rear seat. It was fabulous. People drooled over it. You could do something like that with green. It was WAY less costly than leather and less tacky than dye.

90lxwhite · Apr 5, 2014

gearheadboy said:
I had an 88 Vert GT years ago. Red and silver with a white leather interior. Of course it was shot. I had my upholstery shop do a nice white vinyl that looked like leather with a red soft canvas in the center where you sit and matching rear seat. It was fabulous. People drooled over it. You could do something like that with green. It was WAY less costly than leather and less tacky than dye.

$1000 for tmi vinyl and foam and an upholsterer told me it'd be about $300 to slip em on. Far cry from dye pricing. Too bad there's not a better happy medium. I've been shopping around interior stuff and I'm thinking maybe buying a used set of seats from say an '04 is the better way to go. I've seen about 6 sets of 03/04 cobra seats front and back ranging from 800-1500. All six ads stated "rare."

gearheadboy · Apr 6, 2014

Ya I was talking about the vert. People really see the interior in one with the top down. A hard top is much more forgiving. PS if you buy the stuff from TMI do it yourself. It isn't hard. The sewing is the hard part.

90lxwhite · Apr 6, 2014

gearheadboy said:
Ya I was talking about the vert. People really see the interior in one with the top down. A hard top is much more forgiving. PS if you buy the stuff from TMI do it yourself. It isn't hard. The sewing is the hard part.

even messing w the foam? Oh and also what's the rear foam situation, no one sells it. I'm
affraid when I pull the old interior off the foam will rip. What's a guy to do? Another reason I'd consider "new" seats is my motor is bad and I can't find one now but awhile back it was f'n high.
Ps: sorry op to rant on your thread. I've been researching interior lately too.

gearheadboy · Apr 6, 2014

90lxwhite said:
even messing w the foam? Oh and also what's the rear foam situation, no one sells it. I'm
affraid when I pull the old interior off the foam will rip. What's a guy to do? Another reason I'd consider "new" seats is my motor is bad and I can't find one now but awhile back it was f'n high.
Ps: sorry op to rant on your thread. I've been researching interior lately too.

The rears are usually in good shape. An upholstery shop can sell you a light piece of foam to help it out if needed. What I meant was that if you can work a pair of pliers and take your time, installing new covers and foam is not bad. I used to do it all the time at a dealer. Anything under warranty we had to do. Head liners, seat foam, seat covers etc. A nice big piece of cardboard to lay it on and some basic tools and go to it. Do one at a time so you have a guide. Mustang seats are pretty basic.

dnbonds · Apr 6, 2014

90lxwhite said:
Ps: sorry op to rant on your thread. I've been researching interior lately too.

Lol don't worry about it. I was acutally going to get a TMI Vinyl upholstery kit from LMR but I found these nice suede seats on craigslist for cheap, especially since my old seat frames were shot. So I just decided to grab the craigslist seats and dye them instead.

Once I actually have time (I work all day on the weekends and on monday) I'm going to try out the Duplicolor Interior Paint on some suede samples and report back. TMI has great customer service even if I am not buying a product. I may actually buy a kit for my rear seats

90lxwhite · Apr 6, 2014

dnbonds said:
Lol don't worry about it. I was acutally going to get a TMI Vinyl upholstery kit from LMR but I found these nice suede seats on craigslist for cheap, especially since my old seat frames were shot. So I just decided to grab the craigslist seats and dye them instead.

Once I actually have time (I work all day on the weekends and on monday) I'm going to try out the Duplicolor Interior Paint on some suede samples and report back. TMI has great customer service even if I am not buying a product. I may actually buy a kit for my rear seats

Sounds good

Virtual · Apr 6, 2014

gearheadboy said:
I had an 88 Vert GT years ago. Red and silver with a white leather interior. Of course it was shot. I had my upholstery shop do a nice white vinyl that looked like leather with a red soft canvas in the center where you sit and matching rear seat. It was fabulous. People drooled over it. You could do something like that with green. It was WAY less costly than leather and less tacky than dye.

Definitely don't want tacky! In my case the issue seems to be mainly cosmetic, since the color from some obviously too cheap car seats (never planned to have them on there for 10 years) seems to have discolored the leather. Other than some not too bad cracking in the usual places they're not in bad shape, and I figured dying them might make them at least look a bit better. But since I'm not planning on selling the car any time in the next 50 years, it's just for me, so I'll probably just buy some new seat covers and do it properly later.

Best Dye To Use On Seats

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