How To Repair Leather Dash Z3

Hi,

Took delivery of a 2002 Z3 3.0 terminal month, overall in excellent condition except for the dash. Seems to be a common consequence on these cars with the 'extended' leather - which starts to compress after prolonged exposure to UV.

This car has it on the passenger airbag lid and higher up the musical instrument cluster, simply it was the hat that was abrasive me the most as it was the about visible.

So this weekend, I decided to give plasti dip a go. Got 2 cans - black and clear - after reading a few suggestions on this board.

Someone tried a repair previously on the lid using contact adhesive. With the years of exposure to the lord's day, the adhesive had baked into the hat, and was a b1tch to get off. First I tried acetone, then mentholated spirits - didn't actually practice the trick. Finally, had some turpentine lying around - decided to give it a go and it worked the best out of the three. Afterward virtually 2 hours of scrubbing, finally had enough of the old adhesive off. I done the lid with soap, and left information technology to dry overnight.

The next morning was time to spray - outset I masked off, and cleaned once more with acetone.

I then proceeded to spray the following layers, allowing 30min in between each coat for drying:
- 3x very lite coats of black
- 3x heavy coats of blackness (till wet)
- 2x very light coats of clear
- 2x heavy (till moisture) coats of articulate

And so after 4 hours of drying time, these were the results :
I kept the coats fine, and as a consequence the original text of the plastic remained - which is the outcome I was looking for.

Here are some pics of the hat installed :

Overall, very happy with the results.
I was a little concerned with the hardiness of the coating based on what Ive read online, but this result seems pretty solid. It will come up off with a sharp instrument, just full general treatment should not be an event.

Would have loved to repair the rest of the dash in a similar manner, but that would involve removing the dash - something Im non keen on doing. For now, Im happy.