Bought my first ZT

[Steven211]

I have been a lurker of these forums for years, and some of you may know me off mgrover.org. I have just bought a MG ZT 135 + cdti, 164,000 miles in Royal blue. It drives lovely, no knocks or anything. Just needs a tidy up.

[Madderz]

What a lovely looking car, great colour!

Welcome along

[Steven211]

Originally Posted by Madderz

What a lovely looking car, great colour!

Welcome along

Thank you, it is a rare colour it seems too. I have previously owned two MG6s and this is far superior to both 6s.

[Comfortably Numb]

Doesn't look like it needs much tidying, in fact it looks lovely, except the driver's seat looks a bit bobbly. Is the material alcantara, rather than real suede? My Mitsubishi has alcantara, and suffers in the same way.

[Steven211]

Originally Posted by Comfortably Numb

Doesn't look like it needs much tidying, in fact it looks lovely, except the driver's seat looks a bit bobbly. Is the material alcantara, rather than real suede? My Mitsubishi has alcantara, and suffers in the same way.

The pictures do it justice haha, there are various dents, scratches on body, paint peeling off chrome, spoiler lacquer peel and a tiny bit of rust on o/s rear arch...sills look okay...so will treat before it spreads down the sills.

And yes the front seats are both bobbly, I have started to debobble the passenger seat, but the drivers seat has gone too far, sagging material and cuts at the front. I think it is just alcantara.

[Darcydog]

Originally Posted by Steven211

The pictures do it justice haha, there are various dents, scratches on body, paint peeling off chrome, spoiler lacquer peel and a tiny bit of rust on o/s rear arch...sills look okay...so will treat before it spreads down the sills.

And yes the front seats are both bobbly, I have started to debobble the passenger seat, but the drivers seat has gone too far, sagging material and cuts at the front. I think it is just alcantara.

My alcantara seats are the same - I did a temporary repair that has now lasted two years by :-

1) cutting the saggy bit in the centre of the “bubble”

2) then gently with fingers separated the alcantara from the backing material

3) use a felt material cut to the shape of the gap made with fingers between top layer and backing layer

4) cut strips of dressmaking “hem tape” - enough to cover the felt in 3) above - SWMBO uses this - it’s about a £1 for a large role of it - but it is only about an inch wide. Not found this stuff in large sheets.

5) glue the hem tape to the felt - I used a light spray of an aerosol impact adhesive - you don’t need much as it only to keep the hem tape in place on the felt piece whilst you insert it in the cut so it is on top of the old backing material and under the alcantara.

6) when this felt with hem tape “topping” is in place grab SWMBO’s Iron and a clean Tea Towel soaked in clean water.

7) make sure the alcantara top is nice and smooth and using the hot Iron on the wet tea towel on top of the alcantara gently work the iron from both sides of the cut into the centre. Don’t worry about overlap at the cut at this stage. The heat and the water/steam melts the hem tape and it then holds the material together and is flexible.

8) you should find the alcantara is firmly fixed to the new backing material - and I had an overlap of about a cm in the centre of the cut tapering out to the edges.

9) I then cut another strip of hem tape to match the overlap - recommend great care here as this will be visible when finished. Spend a bit of time making sure the hem tape is in place then gently place the wet tea towel on it and use the hot iron as before.

I was well pleased with the result!

You can only see the join if you really look.

I expected it to last a few months then new rips to appear - but to date it has proved to be a good long lasting repair that extends the life of an otherwise nice drivers seat that was really only fit to be scrapped.

If your seat looked as bad as mine did - give it a go - my thoughts were that I could hardly make it look any worse.

And the result is good!

[trikey]

Here ya go:

This vehicle was the 179th ZT in Royal Blue (code: JFM) to be made out of 661 Royal Blue ZTs

[Steven211]

Originally Posted by trikey

Here ya go:

This vehicle was the 179th ZT in Royal Blue (code: JFM) to be made out of 661 Royal Blue ZTs

How on earth did you find that out without my vin hahaha

[madeupname]

Nice car
As for making piccies smaller, I now edit them and either alter the size that way, or crop out unwanted bits, before attaching to posts.

[marinabrian]

Originally Posted by Steven211

How on earth did you find that out without my vin hahaha

With spooky witchcraft muhwahhahhahhahhaaaaaaah!!!

Means you can quote things like Tuesday, 18th February 2003 @ 14:47:27 being your new car's birthday

Brian