Repairing door arm rest

[wharfhouse]

I've just noticed a small tear in my drivers door armrest where my elbow generally rests. Just wondering if anyone has repaired material on the door armrest - not sure what it's made of but I was thinking a dab or superglue and tape over until it dries? Any thoughts appreciated. 

[Tronix]

Hi Phil,

I had a much worse tear on the armrest in my IS300h - was easy to repair once I managed to remove the armrest and work on my workbench (kitchen table!)

I purchased a piece of PVC from a haberdashers shop (£8/metre - it was 1.2m wide so I ended up buying 0.25m for £2)

The whole job took about 30 mins including 1 cup of tea (Yorkshire tea of course) and the final result is not bad and much less annoying on my elbow when driving

Good Luck!

 

[Notamech]

29 minutes ago, wharfhouse said:

I've just noticed a small tear in my drivers door armrest where my elbow generally rests. Just wondering if anyone has repaired material on the door armrest - not sure what it's made of but I was thinking a dab or superglue and tape over until it dries? Any thoughts appreciated. 

I sort of did...not the armrest exactly. But just above the armrest, i managed to burn a hole in the fake leather of the door card(same material as the armrest) when trying to take out a scratch with a heat gun. You can use specialised leather glue you get online which is flexible. You also get patch kits where you put the patch on the underside of the cut making it less visible.Or like you say you could use superglue and tape. All of which will be visible. Short of having it re-upholstered or professionally fixed none of the DIY solutions will be perfect.

In my case i bough 2 small lexus logos (the epoxy gel type) and stuck it over the hole to cover it. I put one on the other door card as well just to give the car an even look. But in your case i think superglue would be good to help prevent the tear from spreading then put a cool sticker or vinyl over it to make it invisible.

[wharfhouse]

1 hour ago, Tronix said:

Hi Phil,

I had a much worse tear on the armrest in my IS300h - was easy to repair once I managed to remove the armrest and work on my workbench (kitchen table!)

I purchased a piece of PVC from a haberdashers shop (£8/metre - it was 1.2m wide so I ended up buying 0.25m for £2)

The whole job took about 30 mins including 1 cup of tea (Yorkshire tea of course) and the final result is not bad and much less annoying on my elbow when driving

Good Luck!

 

That's a nice job - hopefully I can do a small repair on mine to stop it getting worse without resorting to a full recovering as it's the door arm rest which isn't so easy to remove etc. 

[wharfhouse]

1 hour ago, Notamech said:

I sort of did...not the armrest exactly. But just above the armrest, i managed to burn a hole in the fake leather of the door card(same material as the armrest) when trying to take out a scratch with a heat gun. You can use specialised leather glue you get online which is flexible. You also get patch kits where you put the patch on the underside of the cut making it less visible.Or like you say you could use superglue and tape. All of which will be visible. Short of having it re-upholstered or professionally fixed none of the DIY solutions will be perfect.

In my case i bough 2 small lexus logos (the epoxy gel type) and stuck it over the hole to cover it. I put one on the other door card as well just to give the car an even look. But in your case i think superglue would be good to help prevent the tear from spreading then put a cool sticker or vinyl over it to make it invisible.

Thank - the split is in the top layer of the material and there is a white backing underneath so unless I cut that backing I can't patch under it. I think I'll try superglue along the split - hoping that will glue it together as the material is something synthetic. I was going to use tape to hold the spilt together until the superglue sets and then take the tape off again - I was thinking I could apply some black colouring then if the glue shows up.

[Notamech]

15 minutes ago, wharfhouse said:

Thank - the split is in the top layer of the material and there is a white backing underneath so unless I cut that backing I can't patch under it. I think I'll try superglue along the split - hoping that will glue it together as the material is something synthetic. I was going to use tape to hold the spilt together until the superglue sets and then take the tape off again - I was thinking I could apply some black colouring then if the glue shows up.

Yeah that could work. The only issue is that the colour of the trim is some shade of grey and not black so its hard to match it.

[wharfhouse]

13 minutes ago, Notamech said:

Yeah that could work. The only issue is that the colour of the trim is some shade of grey and not black so its hard to match it.

The car isn't concourse condition having covered 149k miles so I'm expecting a few things starting to show some wear now and so stopping it splitting further and making it look reasonable will be OK.