Leather Dye - Anyone bought Any?

[numskull]

So after helping 2nd born replace roofing felt on one of his garden sheds last weekend and unbeknown to me, a small amount of the adhesive got on the back of my T shirt at some point, which carefully transferred itself to the centre bolster of my drivers seat.

So I removed the main bit with tweezers. I then tried Poorboys leather cleaner to remove the remaining product which did nowt. So then I tried meths which proved to be a disaster,. No only didn’t it remove the bitumen, but it managed to begin to completely remove the top layer of the material and in one tiny spot, the colour of the imitation leatherette - or leather, not sure what it is now - has gone completely, leaving a dark brown material exposed - brilliant.
Now I’ve used meths to successfully clean cr@p off leather on the MKI, the MKII and the the steering wheel of the MKIII without any problems whatsoever, so what this stuff is I really don’t know. So now I have a bolster with a lightened area, a small area with the top coat missing and I still have the two black blobs of bitumen on there too.

I ordered a Skoda Beige dabber pen from The Scratch Doctor and this bared zero resemblance to the seat colour (useless service BTW; couldn’t have been less interested) so I was wondering if anyone has used a dye product which successfully matched the MKIII Ivory/Beige leather colour and if so, the name of the supplier etc.?

[J.R.]

Cant help with the dye but WD40 or similar is my go-to weapon of choice for removing tar & bitumen, try to get it to be absorbed into a cloth wetted with the WD rather than frotting it (wiping?) around as on a textile it will spread like on blotting paper.

[numskull]

Thanks J.R., I’ll give that a go and see if it’ll get rid of the muck. 

 

Anyone else on the dye front? Thanks in advance.

[JBD1974]

I had a go using dye on our sofa . Whilst the results were not perfect it helped really helped take the edge off.

Here's the kit I used: https://amzn.eu/d/73hzwXA

[numskull]

Yeah, thanks for the tip, but it’s that’s that useless Scratch Doctor lot. 

[JBD1974]

I mixed it myself from the various supplied colours until i was happy with the match.

[numskull]

I didn’t get that opportunity. What arrived was a pre-mixed “all-in-one Skoda beige leather dye”, which, I’m guessing, was mixed by a colour blind person without a colour reference in room with blackout blinds….

[numskull]

Quick update. After the rubbish I received from Scratch Doctor (still no refund from them BTW) I contacted Gliptone last week and they confirmed they could match the leather colour of the car. I said I’d tried to find a large enough piece of leather to send them without success and they suggested I sent them a headrest which, although it’s not leather, in their experience the colour of the leather and the imitation leatherette in Skoda vehicles are identical. 

I sent the centre headrest to Gliptone last Thursday and yesterday, I received the 250ml of mixed dye, a free small bottle of leather cleaner and the headrest; brilliant service. More importantly than all this rubbish, is that I applied the dye this morning and once dry, the colour match is absolutely perfect. 👍🏻

[J.R.]

Excellent news!

 

Were the seats leather or leatherette? - You were not sure initially.

 

Do Gliptone say that it will colour either material?

[numskull]

The entire seat base and bolsters, together with the centre section of the squab and bolsters are leather. The top of the squab, where a logo is embossed, or stitched on post Aug 16 cars, plus the squab sides, the top and backs are leatherette… whoops, sorry… “artificial leather”!
I now know this as John Severn, the guy who mixes the dye at Gliptone gave me a great tip; if you press your finger nail into the seat firmly (NOT hard) and creases form into the indentation, it’s leather. Leatherette looks like when you push your finger into a balloon, so there’s no creasing which, given its basically plastic-coated fabric, makes sense.

Yes, the dye will work equally well on the leatherette/vegan leather/NuLuxe/SofText/SensaTec/MB-tex/blah, blah… 👍🏻

[numskull]

As a final update, anyone with a MKIII with a beige interior who has a mark on their seating and wants to buy perfectly matched dye, if they place a custom mix order with Gliptone, then call John Severn on 01244 888658 Option 1 and tell John that you want the colour he mixed for order number 19117, that’ll tell him the correct mix specification. 

Edited 14 September, 2023 by numskull