First off, I actually finished this a few weeks ago but my computer has been a pain in the *** and uploading pics from an iPhone is cumbersome, so this is late coming to the party.

So I got bored with my black interior a little while back. I've been looking into doing an S4 seat swap, and still am interested in doing so, but in the meantime I decided to tap the artistic side and try something. A friend of mine had used a product called SEM Color Coat with great success in a show car, using it on trimwork. I decided to get two colors - Satin Black and Warm Gray - and give it a shot. I used the Satin Black to dye my oh sh*t handles, sunvisors, and B/C pillars in preparation for the black suede headliner that will complement my black suede beltline, rear deck, A pillars, shift boot, etc. Worked great. I used the Warm Gray and a ton of masking tape and sheeting to two-tone my seats. I figured I'd give it a shot, and hope it wouldn't wear off too fast.

As it turns out, once cured for a few hours, this stuff is amazingly durable. I have yet to have it wear in any noticeable amount, despite myself and others constantly sliding in and out of the car. Excellent stuff, and for the $26 I spent on two cans of gray, I've ended up with a much more-expensive looking finish. Here's the results:









Final plans for this stuff are to dye the leather door inserts/armrests on all four doors to tie the whole look together. This amount of gray, with the black suede trim and the rest of the interior in black leather, should end up looking perfect for the look I'm going for. Comments, questions, criticisms welcome

 

Damn, you sent me those pics ages ago .

It works very well in your car, good job.

 

Heh yeah it's been done for awhile. Now that my PC works again I can get a lot of pics of various things uploaded. Much more photo content coming soon including my meet pics as well.

 

looks awesome....get some hi res shots and keep it up! have you noticed any markings on your clothing rubbing off from
the seats?

 

Thanks man. Pretty sure Hiwords has some hi-res shots from the meet so hopefully I can get ahold of them. And no, no abrasions on the seats at all and nothing has come off on clothing, even when getting in wet from the rain. That stuff is the real deal.

 

That looks great! A plain black interior just looks boring. That looks high class.

You said you used it on your handles, how's that holding up? The driver's door handle on my b5 has a ton of paint chips and scratches and I'd love to give this stuff a try. Of course I'll be doing mine in beige to keep the stock look.

 

I used it on the overhead grab handles. If you're talking about the door pulls that you use to close the doors, I see no reason why it wouldn't work as well. And I agreed, all black needed some pop and mine really was all black - stereo surround is Jiggleo's dry carbon and the rest of the beltline is black suede. I really needed something

 

As I've said before, it looks amazing. I'm too afraid to paint my seats; besides, I like my tan/blue interior. I'll do anything to fix the chipped door pulls. Do you have any pointers before I go through with it? Also, what color coat products did you use? I'm looking at the SEM website and I see a bunch of different things (Universal Color Coat, Flex, multi-coat, mixing systems, etc.)

 

Ballin outta control brah!

 

What I bought was simply called SEM Color Coat. The flexpaint would be ideal for the seats and armrests, but for the door pulls pretty much anything would probably work. If you're going to do hard plastic you could fine sand (lightly with 600 grit) to allow it to adhere better, and then wash it with cold clean water to get dust off. If you're doing leather or anything like that, you want to make sure there's no conditioners on it, or armor-all or any other treatments, since they make it hard for the coatings to adhere.