"Melted??" car seats - Mitsubishi Outlander

Hi I'm hoping you can help me to identify what in the Baby Jesus name happened to driver car seat in my wife's car. We live in Ireland and we dont really have that much sun as one would think that extreme heat was applied to that seat as you can see on the photo attached. The "leather" in this spot became hard and it looks like it has shrinked. The similiar thing happened to one of the rear seats as well...not to that extend but I can feel that it is much harder than material surrounding. So my simple mind tells me it is not leather at all but rather some sort of vinyl...so just wondering is it fixable ? Maybe with heat gun and re-stretching it or is it damaged beyond repair...have you actually seen something like that before ? I really find it hard to imagine that this is heat/sun exposure damage but nothing was spilled on the seat...so I'm hoping to try to fix it...if its possible.
I'm also just curious is that a common occurence ?
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>>> So my simple mind tells me it is not leather at all but rather some sort of vinyl...Vinyl shrink when the “plasticizer” evaporates, leather shrink when the fatliquor (fat and oil) evaporates.

Vinyl is more elastic in stretchability as compared with leather, a way to do a stretch test as one point to identify between them. Another sure way to identify is to see the reverse side and leather reverse side is suede, vinyl reverse side is fabric.


>>> so just wondering is it fixable ?

Leather is fixable by replenishing with fatliquor (fat and oil) by Hydrator-3.3 > Fatliquor-5.0 system with lots of stretching back to the original dimension. More effective to treat the leather from the suede side otherwise the leather has to be needle perforated to allow the Hydrator-3.3 > Fatliquor-5.0 system to penetrate the structure or thickness of the leather.


>>> Maybe with heat gun

Heat will further damage either Vinyl or Leather.


>>>and re-stretching it or is it damaged beyond repair…

When the leather structure is saturated with Hydrator-3.3 it will limp up and stretchable to the original dimension while replenishing with Fatliquor-5.0 at the same time.


>>> have you actually seen something like that before ?

Yes, plenty of water/heat damage after rain and sun.


>>> I really find it hard to imagine that this is heat/sun exposure damage but nothing was spilled on the seat…

It could be a forgotten spill that is under heat/sun exposure.


>>> so I'm hoping to try to fix it...if it's possible.

Possible, but technically challenging.


>>> I'm also just curious is that a common occurence ?

All leather when wet and under heat will have a similar result - fatliquor evaporates.



Roger Koh
Leather, Skin, Hair, Eye & Acne Care System Formulator
Consultant / Practitioner / Instructor / Coach
web: www.leatherdoctor.com
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