The Upholstery Forum

Today I have seen a parked Peugeot 307 Cabriolet (not for sale in the US) uphostered in leather that included a dashboard covered in what seemed red vinyl from the factory. I guess that the car had not been very well maintained and had spent lots of hours under the sun witbout any protection and the vinyl had shrinked a lot, and the thread was in very bad condition, leaving the airbag seams visible:




I read that when a car has a dashboard upholstered in leather, it could shrink if it was under the sun for a long time, but I did not read that vinyl could also shrink?

About airbags, when I made some leather covers for my car seats, I was scared of covering the seat side airbags using my walking foot industrial sewing machine and I left the lateral of the seat open to allow a proper deployment of the airbags.

I read that there are dedicated sewing machines, like the Durkopp Adler 550-867, that monitor thread tension and stitch length to ensure a correct deployment of airbags, keeping all the information in a database to be used in case of possible litigation in an accident, and I was wondering if a non professional trimmer could safely make a seam in an side airbag or dashboard?

Some time ago, I asked that question to a trimmer when I found their shop in a trip and I purchased some scrim foam and she explained me that they just used a thin, non industrial thread to be sure that it would rip in an accident, allowing the inflation of the airbag. I'm sure that if they had been using this technique for some time, it would work, but if I was the one making the seat covers, I would not be so sure that it would always work in an accident exposing myself to a lawsuit in case of problems... it would not be easy to be a trimmer today with modern cars!!

@Johnny,

Thanks for this information and the picture!

You're welcome! It was a pity to see the very nice car with such a horribly maintained dashboard...

Yeah airbags are really unknown area for trimmers like us. We talked a lot about this topic here. viewtopic.php?f=2&t=61&p=472&hilit=airbags#p472
What ever you decide to do I suggest having a lawyer make you a universal contract to have customer sign when you work on air bags.

Yeah Ive seen that Alder machine talked about before. I don't know if they are even for sale to the public. If it is Im sure its affordable.
Speaking of Adler. I dream to own of those one day

One topic leads to another so now that I see this picture it brings me to question if that thread did not have UV protection?

@John, Alder price here forthis model 867-190040 is $6500.00 before taxes and shipping.

@John Wow!!! Lots of information about airbags in this forum and in related posts!! I did not see this thread before posting . Thank you very much for the information, and I'm sure that I will not repair a seat containing an airbag module, as it can be a real problem if something fails...

@BigRig Thank you very much for the information about this machine and yes, I also thought about the quality of this thread seeing that in only ten years it was like that... I will try to change the tittle of this post so that we can talk about that, given that the airbag issue is already covered

We have temperature extremes here an when the sun is beating down it can be intense, with our short season there can be cumulative damage to the health of material. I cannot imagine what it would be like somewhere hot all year round.

Yes, sun really is harmful for everything... here we have very hot summers and I always put a sunshade in the car and it only has a leather steering wheel from the factory and the leather seat covers that I made... the interior can reach really high temperatures and only imagining a leather covered dashboard without any protection, I

@LeatherJohnny Glad you found the info helpful. Ill bet they used nylon thread. A lot of manufactures will use nylon to save $$$ but it doesn't hold up in the sun as long. Plus the amount of tension on the seam from how much that material shrunk.

@BigRig Hana yeah I bet you actually have to worry about the cold crack rating of your vinyl up there in the winter time. That's something Ive never had to worry about.

Thank you very much again for the information!

@John,

Cold crack is serious business here. The plastics will crack if not flexible, our little Focus gas flap just snapped in half this winter and I cracked a steel leaf spring on my truck this year, wore one battery down from trying to cold start the truck and that is it Its best to use outdoor vinyl the black seat Rev Up did would be the kind of vinyl I would use in a service truck has to have -40 Cold crack rating. I could not get warm this year it was just too cold for too long!!!

Thats crazy man! You have some serious weather up there.

Wow!! No wonder that lots of people move to Florida or California! (I hate cold... )

@LeatherJohnny
They are called snowbirds! I see a lot of people spend their maximum time they are allowed to be out of country go to the warm places.

I also intend moving to another place/region with better climate when I retire!

@LeatherJohnny

Then you must check out Nunavet

You are really brave living there!!! (And have to spend lots of dollars in heating costs!! )

Here in Spain I use my scooter all year round, as I did when I had dirt bikes, but prefer to use it in summer, of course, and when I read that in some climates people put their motorcycles to rest in winter months, I always think that I would only avoid using it with snow. In your area I would not use it lots of months!!! ( unless I live in the Kugluktuk area, it seems )

@LeatherJohnny ,

You can ride a mountain bike if you put spikes on the tires but there is no way your running a motorized bike. It costs to heat the house in the winter but we get really amazing spring summer and fall months.

And you also have a really beautiful scenery!

@LeatherJohnny

I spend a lot of time in the mountains and when up there will take some photos of some cool stuff.