Car Care Advice

The next car I had the privilege of watching being connollised was a Rolls-Royce. The car is about twenty five years old and in great overall condition. But as happens with time, the leather has got old and worn, and needed some tender love and care.

When connollising leather there is a dye-code that was used to originally dye the leather. Allan has these codes so he can mix up the colour precisely.

Unfortunately, when the leather is as old as in this car, the original colour would look out of place because the leather will have gotten darker, (think old leather jacket) and bleached by the sun along with just ordinary wear and tear. Even if you could dye the seats back to its original, the other inside parts would then look out of place, such as the carpet and ceiling. These can not be dyed with leather dye, obviously and can only be cleaned. more »

One day last week I was given the chance to go see something unusual (not that!). A Roller and a Noble M12 were being connollised.

Which means the leather was being treated for wear and tear. For you who like me don’t know what a Noble is I can tell you that it is a hand made car manufactured in the U.K. — If you don’t know what connollising is, then you had better read the articles!

Anyway, I had the privilege to be watching Alan
working on this beauty at Clean Image. more »

I also watched him do a Rolls-Royce and considering the Rolls was at least 25 years old it looked good! more »

So that is the news, I went to Clean Image and saw a master at work, it was great fun as you can read in my articles.

While there, this turned up it’s a sweet little number for those of you that like to play, only £11,000, low tax and made of plastic (yes a sporty Smartcar) only thing wrong with it was the colour…..it was not Pink! Just kidding!

All in all I had a nice day surrounded by big strong men, could be worse!

Anna

To start of with, I think I should tell you what connollising is for: It is to restore leather to it’s original state, or as close to original you can get. This means to colour the leather with special leather paint, or dye, this should only be done by someone who knows what they are doing.
A little interesting point about the car, A Noble M12 is a handmade car that is manufactured in Leicestershire in England. The BBC’s Top Gear tested this car around the track a few series ago and it is still number twenty two on the list clocking a time of 1.25.00 which is still pretty quick.
more »

PDR stands for ‘paintless dent repair‘. It’s a method for removing small dents without the need for filling and repainting. It’s perfect for the kind of small dents you get on your doors at supermarkets, and can often be used on larger dents but it does have it’s limitations. more »

In theory, using a wash mitt will reduce the risk of scratches to your paintwork while washing. more »

Not really - it’s a bit like asking if jam sandwiches are bad… jam sandwiches are pretty good in my opinion, yet I wouldn’t want one stuffed in my ear! And lime flavoured jam does nothing for me at all. more »

The best way to maintain interior plastics is just to wash them to keep them clean… use a general purpose cleaner and wipe them clean. However, these days you have to be especially careful as there are lots of sensitive electrics behind the dashboard and door panels which tend to react badly to getting wet. I cannot stress this enough, getting the electrics wet can be very, very costly! more »