The Upholstery Forum

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 ?

The damaged panels are non repairable unless @JimmieJoe you know how to fix something like this with your leather vinyl reapir service. Those panle portions look leather to me and maybe question if a solution was spilled or sprayed on them like rubbing alchohol?

I saw similar thing on another post, but don't see it now. Could it be one of those freaky things that the sun coming through the window and cooking the leather like a magnifying glass does? Recently a friend had a pane of glass w/frame laying on some Styrofoam and it melted 5 sheets of 1" foam in about a 1 foot area.

not much sun in Ireland

You are correct BigRig, I thought perhaps it was on Sun day.

That is funny. I think somebodys hairspray let go on these seats.

Sorry, once shrunk it is not reversible.
We have also see this from people leaving water bottles on the seat and the water in the water bottle acts like a lens for the sun.