Door Boards - Vinyl Repair (Attempt)

Sadly a common problem with older cars is that as the plastics also age. In the heat of the sun the softener evaporates from the material, the materials become hard, shrink and become brittle. This is especially nasty if you get a car from the 1980s and onwards where plastics and vinyl were favoured over more durable materials like leather. Having a 1989 Mercedes 190D, I was struck by this curse as well.

A common weakness in the 1980s Mercs are the vinyl interior linings. Usually they do not crack but substantially shrink from their original size. This especially applies to the inside roof lining and the lining on the door panels. If left untreated the linen will tear off and the bottom wooden panel structure appears. A quick fix in the early stages of the process is to staple the linen down (preferably under the window gasket) so that it cannot shrink to expose the underlying structure. I did that about five years ago to my door panels back in Germany.

Now the car has been in Canada since 2007 and the hot continental summers took their toll on that fix. Instead of shrinking and exposing the underlying structure, the vinyl got many tiny nasty scars. In Germany, there was a rust-protection company that also sold a “Vinyl and Leather Repair Kit” that I used on several other occasions. Usually this is something to fix individual scars in leather and vinyl. It comes with filler that can be mixes with several different colors to match the color of the leather and several samples of texture paper to imitate the surface of the leather. It also comes with a tiny stamp that you heat up in order to “bond” the filler through the texture paper with the leather. Being ambitious to apply it on large surfaces, I used a regular iron instead of the stamp.

Here is what you need

• Vinyl repair kit (comes with colors, filler, applicator and stamp)
• Regular iron
• Knife and eraser
• Degreaser

Approach

(after, texture paper, and before)

First clean the surface throughout. Then use the knife or a set of keys to roughen up the damaged surface such that the filler can stick to it. At the same time heat the iron up already.

Second degrease the surface and mix the appropriate color. Hitting the right tone is a pain in the ass, because the color seems to change a little after the filler hardens. As long as you do not heat the filler up you can always wash it off with the degreaser. That way experiment a little until you have something that comes close to the original color.

Third, depending on the type of repair apply the coloured filler boldly on the surface. In my case the surface was a little large so that I got a little cheap with it, which caused some of the bigger cracks to shine through the surface afterwards.

Fourth, apply the texture paper and press it down firmly (see above picture).

Sixth, use the heated iron and iron the texture paper. Move the iron slowly and hold the paper down at the edges. Be careful some vinyl or leathers do not take a lot of heat. If the iron is to hot it might burn right through it. For small patches use the stamp of the kit instead of the iron.

After about 30-60 seconds remove the iron. If the surface is not glossy anymore the filler is dry and you can progress to the next patch.

After you are done you can use a (pencil) eraser to soften up the edges of the vinyl filler a bit, and use a sharp knife to cut off any excess filler, if needed.

This is a very neat and simple way to fix scars and tears in vinyl. Even though it is not perfect, it looks much better than before. If you have lots of filler left it probably makes sense to apply it in multiple layers as you may not fill in all of the tiny scars at the first attempt. Unfortunately, I ran out of filler fairly quickly because of the large surface to fix.

This stuff also gets you involved with neighbours: "Why are you ironing your car?"