Can You Repair Your Own Vehicle's Upholstery?

A large scratch or a deep hole can seriously damage the visual appeal of your vehicle's interior. With the right supplies and a little bit of information, there is no reason why you cannot repair the minor damage on your own.

Fixing Ripped Up Seats

Regardless of if you know how your seat was ripped or if you bought it that way, this is a fairly easy and cheap problem to fix. A rip means that you have not actually lost the fabric, it just has a tear that is big enough to reveal the material underneath it. Follow these steps to fix a ripped up seat:

Step One: Purchase a curved upholstery needle from your local craft store. This is the type of needle that will allow you to pierce the upholstery without damaging anything underneath it. You will also need to invest in some strong thread that is suitable for doing upholstery work. Ideally, it should be the same color as your vehicle's seats.

Step Two: Thread the needle with twice as much thread as you actually need. Then, slip the needle through the fabric at one of the ends of the rip. Bring the needle up through the fabric about an inch away from where the tear begins. Get a second person to hold the sides of the rip together while you stitch it up.

Step Three: Using the needle, stitch up the tear in the fabric. Continue to repeat this process until you have completely stitched up the tear.

If you have more than one tear, repeat these three steps to stitch up tears anywhere in your upholstery. If you have a large number of tears or a lot of large tears, you might want to think about having the upholstery replaced instead. Having the upholstery replaced is going to be more expensive, but it is less time consuming if you have a lot of rips to patch up.

Fixing a Hole

If you are dealing with a hole in the fabric instead of a tear, you are going to need additional fabric in addition to the thread and needle because a hole means the fabric is completely gone. Fixing a hole involves cutting a piece of the fabric slightly larger than the whole and stitching it in place. The hardest part is finding fabric that matches your car seat.

Naturally, if you do not have experience with needles or you have a lot of damage to your interior, it would be beneficial to take it to a specialist. There are plenty of automotive shops like Franks Auto Top & Upholstery that specialize in upholstery and interior repair work. They would be able to fix the damages for you. 

Share