DIY leather car seat stitching repair [FIXED]

Most of the times, DIY is a faster, cheaper alternative, provided you know what you are doing.

As the country is still in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, it's a good time to learn new skills and do things yourself, in order to avoid unnecessary travelling and contact with external parties.

Thus, I decided to take care of a long-time outstanding issue with my car - a torn leather seat. This tear was on the driver's side - the side where I sit, so when I'm in the car I don't see it, and when I'm not in the car I definitely can't see it. Still, the adage "a stitch in time saves nine" keeps tugging my thoughts back to this, as I fear one day I will be left with an ugly gaping gash.

Last year, when I was in KL, I asked if anything could be done to fix it. The seat cover "expert" (subcontractor of Desmond @ KL Auto) said it was too risky to repair, as the leather was old and thin, likely to tear and thus the entire seat cover should be replaced. And since there was no way to match the passenger's side, he recommended to change both driver and passenger seat covers. Now, this would cost somewhere above RM2K, and even that, with a lower-quality leather material. Given that option, I reluctantly deferred the repair, and hope it would not get worse.

Now, having done a series of DIY's at home over the last couple of months, including replacing my own spark plugs, I thought I'd have a go at sewing back the seat cover. The first thing that came to mind was to use the standard needle and thread from my sewing kit. However, on second thought, I doubted that it could be THAT easy. So, thankfully we have YouTube! :)

I looked up a couple of videos on what actually needed to be done, and figured out I needed the right tools and equipment. My seat cover was not actually torn - it's just that the thread had broken and come undone. For this kind of sewing, a standard straight needle would not be able to loop through the leather (definitely not thin as described by the seat cover expert), hence I needed a hooked needle. And the standard thread for sewing cloth would not do either, hence I needed thick, waxed thread. Once again, I placed an order on Shopee and waited for the parts to arrive. As usual, delivery services are fortunately still working amidst the MCO (Movement Control Order) lock-down.

Looking at the seat cover, on the plus side, the material was still thick, especially at the edges where the material was folded. The holes left by the original stitching were still intact - thus I concluded that the existing thread likely snapped, and thus left this gap. Therefore, I would sew through the existing holes in the seat cover - this made it easier as I didn't have to make new holes (which would likely weaken the material) and also the holes on both sides would be lined up.

In spite of using the existing holes and waxed thread, the needle did not exactly glide through like a knife through hot butter. It was impossible for me to push it through with my fingers, hence, I had to use a pair of grip pliers (couldn't find any smaller one) to push the needle through. Slowly but surely, I got the job done, just like what I saw on YouTube....

I made sure that each insertion went in and out of the right holes, and after an intense 30 minutes or so, I finally finished the last stitch. The interesting thing about this technique is that we only use a single thread through instead of dual threads, and we tie the new thread to the old threads on both ends.

Here's what the final outcome of my latest DIY repair project turned out:

The tweezers here is what I THOUGHT might work for pushing the needle through. Ended up it was too weak and had no grip on the needle, so I had to use the pliers instead. Lucky it looked OK, and was sturdy enough that it didn't unravel or turn out looking worse. Otherwise it would be a classic case of tikus membaiki labu (a Malay proverb that literally means "Mouse fixing a pumpkin"). Well, only time will tell if this will hold (and since I don't drive around that much these days, this will take some time to find out for sure).

Now, not shown here, on the right side of the driver's seat, the cushioning was worn out due to excessive rubbing getting into and out of the car. Yes, that is on my list of D.I.Y. TO DO. But that will be a story for another time....