Revamping the worn leather seats and interior of an Audi TT

Ok so the car's interior has seen better days. It appears the Audi has been used as an audio showroom car at some point in its life (will get back to this in a later post). One would assume everything was in nice shape then. But afterwards... Well. Some cleaning needed and the leather pretty much neglected. The closeup shows the general worn out shape of the seats. The white stuff is just my protective gloves.

On removing the seats things get more interesting. We find money, plastic, wires, more wires, even more wires, receipts...and mayonnaise? Ok so I get not everyone likes their cars clean, but seriously. The carpet looks like some dropped a burger mayo can on it. Or worse. See detail.

Fortunately the carpet is made of pretty solid material and can take solvents. Just need to make room to access it.

So in order to refinish the seats they must come off. The front seats are attached with four hex bolts each and come off fairly easily, try fiddling the seat back and forth to make room to work in.

Take care to detach the seat heating and airbag wires underneath the seats first so as not to break anything or even worse, set off the side airbag in your face. Rear seat backrests have four 17mm bolts and just slide up when these are gone - the hex bolts do not need to be removed.

On the right, seats are in cleanup, first with 'leather prep' that smells exactly like acetone, and then with alcohol. These solvents break the old sealant off the leather and make the surface ready for new color. I also lightly sanded some places that had serious tape marks (I guess?) Like duct tape on leather. Hmm? Note the faded black in the 'before' pic with seats on green tarp.

Paint is applied first as a base coat with a sponge, plus then in multiple layers with a shoddy spray gun. Once the paint dries, multiple layers of sealant come over it to keep the paint on the leather rather than the seat of your pants. This pic on the right is somewhere after the second of third coat and the difference to the 'before' is already pretty significant.

After the sealants are complete the leather needs to dry out properly. It was a warm day outside (24C) so the paint dried very quickly. In less than 30 minutes it was dry to the touch. The downside is that if anything flies on to the paint when wet, it is going to be difficult to remove. The final coats (see detail on rear seats) are matte to make the leather look new. Only worn leather shines.

While at it, I also cleaned every surface in the car. First with interior shampoo, then stain remover, and finally with a steam cleaner. After, I applied trim restorer to all plastic areas.

The steering wheel (see detail pic) was really worn and almost white in places. The leather restore stuff sticks to it nicely. While not completely new looking, the difference is substantial anyway.