# Seat fabric dye-jobs - Duplicolor Alternative?



## pcm1978 (Apr 16, 2003)

15 years of CA sun have taken their toll on the factory cloth seats in my 96 Jetta Trek, which have faded to an unattractive light purple color on the non-patterned black parts of the seat (headrests, side bolsters). Now that I've had the windows tinted, I am looking for a way to restore the black color, reversing the damage that's already been done. The problem is, I need something that can be applied to the all-black parts only, without messing up the center section, with its awesome stick-figures-riding-bicycles motif.

Here is a shot of the current state of the passenger seat. Color is a bit washed out at the bottom of the pic due to flash, but the outer portions of the seat really do have that lavender hue.










I tried the flat black duplicolor vinyl/fabric paint today, on a single rear headrest. I put on 3 light coats, with about 4-5 minutes rest in between, then waited for it to dry. Flipped it over and did the same to the other side. This is a shot of the dry product next to the other, still-faded rear headrest. Looks much better, right? 










Problem was, the paint/dye made the fabric quite stiff, and the dried paint had a slightly sandpapery texture. Using a trick I saw online, I tried brushing it with a stiff upholstery brush. This fixed the texture and softened it somewhat, but it was still stiffer than the unsprayed headrest. More problematic is that the headrest looks a bit faded again, after the brushing. :banghead:










Note that one headrest has longer posts than the other :screwy: - not sure how that happened.

Because of the unpleasant texture and the mediocre improvement in color, I'm now searching for alternatives to the spray paint. Has anyone tried using RIT dye (or similar) in a spray bottle?


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## rabbitvw1984 (Jun 12, 2004)

SEM colorcoat works great and also upholstey fabric paint from a company called simply spray.

Sent from my apple 2E


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