Seat options - what to do?

[ThreeBeans]

Evening all,

Trying to figure out what to do with the seats on my recently acquired 2000 S.

Car has the sport wingback seats and unfortunately at some point in the past the passenger seat base has been damaged most likley by water ingress or something hot being put on the seat.

I was hoping the leather could be recovered but the more I read on this it not likley but got some leather softener on its way to at least try.

Assuming I cant get it much better than it is now, I am trying to figure out what to do....finding just a passenger side sport seat looks near impossible and even if I could the premium on these seats makes it a painful prospect and replacing the leather is even more of a frightening cost!

Swapping out both seats for a standard set looks to be the next best option as I hope I might be able to recover some of the cost of selling the sport seats on but not sure how sellable they would be.

Lastly would be just living with it as apart from that the seats are in a reasonable condition and just need some reconditioning. But I know its going to annoy me and not sure my OCD could see past it.

Any other options I have missed - could you guys live with it?

Cheers 

 

P.S We lovingly refer to the mark as the 'atomic fart' at the moment

Edited August 26, 2021 by ThreeBeans

[Menoporsche]

@red rocket IIRC. 

[Mattman42]

Is the seat base the same as the stand seat? Could you just change the base and not the back?

I’d find a local car trimmer and get a quote, or may not be as much as you think. I had a side bolster retrimmed on a previous car in leather than had worn through and it was about £120 all in 

[½cwt]

The problem here is the perforated leather. Apparently (I've investigated this a bit with an upholsterer @gary hubbard on here) there is only one supplier in the UK (in Southampton area IIRC) with the tooling to make the Porsche perforation pattern.  Apparently you have to buy a whole hide at wholesale.  The other option is to do a full retrim to both seats and this is about £1300 upwards.

I'm no expert here but I wonder weather a leather expert could work some magic with steam treatment?

All the above said, from looking at the parts catalogue it is only the seat back that change with the different seat styles so a seat with a damaged back but should base from a breaker could be a cost effective solution. Or even one that just has the perforated leather section of the base is OK but everything else a bit rubbish (the bolster tend o crack or get damaged on the well sued seats but the perforated section stand up much better) and get a trimmer to cut out the damaged section and let in the the undamaged section.

[BBB]

That looks like a hot take-away container has melted the top coating of the leather and so replacement is the only real option.

[red rocket]

I think BBB has probably hit on the cause above. It does look like the surface has been distorted and there may be some resulting leather shrinkage. You could try the softener as per discussion on previous thread but I'm not confident it will help much. As suggested by 1/2cwt getting the right leather to replace it is likely to prove difficult. The perforation pattern is a major obstacle, the difference in appearance between 20 year old and new leather, the degree of surface coating but even the colour could be problematic - there are loads of shades of Black, Blue toned, Red toned etc etc. It's got to be worth a go treating it yourself first but then you probably need a trimmer to have a close look and see whether they can help.

[myfirstboxster]

Worth having a word with Douglas valley breakers ?

[Menoporsche]

16 hours ago, Mattman42 said:

Is the seat base the same as the stand seat? Could you just change the base and not the back?

I'd be looking into this. If that central patch of leather is the same dimensions as a standard seat, all one needs to do (he says confidently) is get that patch out of a standard seat, ideally one that is cheap as it has had the side bolsters damaged as our 56lb friend suggests, and sew it into the existing sports seat.

If people here have mentioned restitching the plastic rear window with new plastic, it can't be so difficult to restitch the leather patch can it?

[myfirstboxster]

Just an afterthought , what if the heat has damaged the foam and not the actual leather ?

[Sanky]

I’m sure both of the seat bases are the same for the wingback and standard ones.  
 

Check on the parts catalogue for the foam part numbers.

[ThreeBeans]

Thanks for all the suggestions 👍

Some interesting ideas to investigate

[BBB]

Any use?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/144060535409?hash=item218aad5271:g:~boAAOSwRv1gtl3b

[½cwt]

6 hours ago, Menoporsche said:

I as our 56lb friend suggests,

Someone really is paying attention! 😉  Even took me a moment to get that one.

[½cwt]

6 hours ago, Menoporsche said:

I'd be looking into this. If that central patch of leather is the same dimensions as a standard seat, all one needs to do (he says confidently) is get that patch out of a standard seat, ideally one that is cheap as it has had the side bolsters damaged as our 56lb friend suggests, and sew it into the existing sports seat.

If people here have mentioned restitching the plastic rear window with new plastic, it can't be so difficult to restitch the leather patch can it?

Easiest would be finding a decent whole base and just swapping the back over.  It is only a few bolts on the seat frame but needs to be done out for the car (E12 socket required to remove the seat fixing bolts to the floor).

 

4 hours ago, Sanky said:

I’m sure both of the seat bases are the same for the wingback and standard ones.  
 

Check on the parts catalogue for the foam part numbers.

I couldn't find any difference in bases in the parts cat, only the backs.

[ThreeBeans]

1 minute ago, ½cwt said:

Easiest would be finding a decent whole base and just swapping the back over.  It is only a few bolts on the seat frame but needs to be done out for the car (E12 socket required to remove the seat fixing bolts to the floor).

 

I couldn't find any difference in bases in the parts cat, only the backs.

Thanks for checking that's a great help - certainly worth a punt on a single standard seat and doing the swap. 

This is the most helpful car group/forum I have been a part of 👍

[½cwt]

10 minutes ago, ThreeBeans said:

Thanks for checking that's a great help - certainly worth a punt on a single standard seat and doing the swap. 

This is the most helpful car group/forum I have been a part of 👍

A better class or person drives a Porsche, or just a better ratio if nerds to trolls! 🤔

[Mattman42]

@ThreeBeans - did you get your seat sorted? These just been listed on my local facebay -  it sure if they would work

https://i.imgur.com/Lrzjdlx.png
 

Edited September 6, 2021 by Mattman42

[999 WRC]

@ThreeBeans - as others have mentioned have a phone around the Porsche Breakers (Steve Strange, Douglas Valley etc)  I have bought a few bits for mine from a breakers in Northern Ireland (search on eBay for deldear93)  They couldn't be more helpful.  Just to help though I wouldn't worry about searching specifically for a base as all you need is enough perforated leather - so a seat back, or part of a base (even with well worn bolster etc) will be fine.  A half decent trimmer will be able to use the leather from whatever you can find to repair yours I'm sure.  With a bit of research you might not even need a Boxster seat as something from the Porsche range that uses the same leather is all you need so don't rule out Cayennes and the like.

Happy hunting 

[999 WRC]

8 minutes ago, 999 WRC said:

@ThreeBeans - as others have mentioned have a phone around the Porsche Breakers (Steve Strange, Douglas Valley etc)  I have bought a few bits for mine from a breakers in Northern Ireland (search on eBay for deldear93)  They couldn't be more helpful.  Just to help though I wouldn't worry about searching specifically for a base as all you need is enough perforated leather - so a seat back, or part of a base (even with well worn bolster etc) will be fine.  A half decent trimmer will be able to use the leather from whatever you can find to repair yours I'm sure.  With a bit of research you might not even need a Boxster seat as something from the Porsche range that uses the same leather is all you need so don't rule out Cayennes and the like.

Happy hunting 

Footnote - as an example just found this on eBay (search under Item number 284435547953).  Its not quite the answer (right leather, wrong colour!) but an upholsterer would recolour it to black easily and you'd have enough leather to get yours repaired.