First, my apologies: this won't be much of a step by step guide, as in my haste, I forgot to take a "Before" picture. Or "during" pictures. Sorry; the leather repair kit showed up, and I just sorta jumped into things.
When I purchased my 2000 S a couple of weeks ago, the one thing that stood out as being in relatively poor condition was the left section of the driver's seat, and especially the bolster. The left section had a lot of heavy creasing, and the bolster had the same condition, plus a lot of cracking, with white showing through. It wasn't
horrible, but it definitely was bad.
The best I can do in terms of showing you what it was like is to show one of the images from the car's eBay listing; unfortunately, it's low res and a bit out of focus. But I think you'll be able to see the cracking:
Stumbling about the interwebs, I found a firm that sells repair kits, and they also offer dyes that match Porsche (and many other) leather colors. I have no connection with this company, by the way.
Following the instructional video on their website, I was able to get the bolster to this state in about an hour and a half:
Obviously, the light is much different between the two photos, but I think you can see how much better it looks.
The repair process is simple: you basically clean and rough up the surface to be repaired, fill in any creases or cracks with a filler material (several thin coats), and then apply 3-4 thin coats of dye. You can dry each coat using a hair dryer, speeding the process considerably. In the photo above, I'd applied 3-4 coats of the filler, and about 5-6 thin coats of dye. The color matches quite well.
After about 48 to 72 hours, you then treat it with a conditioner/protectant (which is part of the kit). The only thing that I needed that wasn't part of the kit was some fine (600 to 1000 grit) sandpaper, but I happened to have some 1000 grit on hand.
The company I purchased this from is called
Leather World Technologies. The kit I bought is a
"Deluxe Leather Recolor and Repair Kit." It was $59.95
For having never done anything like this before, I'm very pleased with how it worked out. One thing that helped a lot: as mentioned earlier, their website has instructional videos, and I was able to watch the relevant video several times during the process. I hope this helps out some of you!
P.S.: One truly
weird thing about this website is that I searched all over it and couldn't find an address or phone number. In any event, post-order communication was good, the kit showed up quickly, and I'm happy. The packing list contains a Roanoke, VA address and phone number, BTW. I guess the omission on the website is just an oversight.