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If you want to restore the leather shift knob on your car, it’s important to evaluate the condition of the leather first. If the leather is ripped, broken apart, or damaged in a way where the leather material itself is beyond salvageable, then you may need to replace the leather with a new piece of leather. This would require removing the damaged leather to use as a template, and cutting and installing a new piece to replace it with. I have a full guide to doing such a repair here: How to Rewrap a Leather Shift Knob
On the other hand, if your leather is still largely intact, but has worn down a bit or the leather dye/paint has worn away, then you may be able to restore it easily with simply re-dyeing the leather on the shift knob. On this guide, I will show you how to clean and re-dye the leather on your shift knob so that it looks new again.
Tools & Materials
All Purpose Cleaner: 3D All Purpose Cleaner
Scrub Pad: Detail Armory Double-Sided Scrub Pads
Microfiber Towels: Amazon Basics Microfiber Towels
Automotive/Painter’s Tape: 3M Automotive Tape
Leather Dye: Angelus Leather Dye (variety of colors available)
Leather Conditioner: Lexol All Leather Conditioner
How to Re-Dye a Leather Shift Knob
Here’s the leather shift knob on my Audi TT. The top portion is made out of stainless steel and plastic, but the lower half is wrapped in black leather. As you can tell, the leather is intact, but the black color has worn down quite a bit. This is the perfect candidate for re-dyeing the leather, which can easily restore the look of the shift knob.
When re-dyeing the shift knob, it’s best to remove the shift knob completely from your car. It’s entirely possibly to do all of this without removing the shift knob from your car, but removing it makes it easier to do. Take a good look at all of the leather on your shift knob and confirm that it is only the leather dye that has worn down. If the leather is broken or the material itself has worn down, you may need to replace the leather part of it.
Before we apply dye to the leather, we’ll need to do a thorough cleaning of the leather first. Use an all purpose cleaner along with a microfiber towel or even better, a scrub pad. A scrub pad’s nylon bristles will do an excellent job at cleaning all the dirt, oil, and other gunk stuck in the leather. After a good scrubbing with all purpose cleaner and a scrub pad, wipe the leather off clean with a microfiber towel. Do an additional cleaning and wipe off if it is still dirty.
After I scrubbed the leather on my shift knob and cleaned it off, it looks like this. It’s darkened because it is wet, but once it dries again, it will apppear worn again. Let it completely dry before you go to the next step to re-dye the leather.
Tape up anything you don’t want to get leather dye on. The dye can be messy, so I would make sure to do this over a shop towel or something you don’t mind getting dye on, and also wear some nitrile gloves too.
I still had some leftover dye from another project I was doing, but any quality leather dye will work. Apply the leather dye with either a microfiber applicator pad, or even a microfiber towel. Once it has been applied thoroughly, allow it to set for a minute, and then wipe off any extra product with a microfiber towel.
Remove the tape and ensure none of the leather dye has gotten on any other part of the shift knob that you don’t want it on. If you did get any dye on anything, use isopropyl alcohol to remove it.
After allowing the leather dye to fully dry (per the manufacturer’s instructions), you’ll want to apply some leather conditioner to finish it off. Without the leather conditioner, the leather may look a little rough, but with the conditioner, it will really restore that look of the re-dyed leather.
And with that, your leather shift knob is restored quickly and easily. It really doesn’t take that much effort to re-dye the leather on your shift knob if the color of the leather has just worn away over time. It only takes a little bit of effort, but re-dyeing your leather shift knob is easy and gives you fantastic results.
