[///Mani]

Originally Posted by SD ///M4

I did this with the Full Black Leather interior on my Sakhir Orange M4. I took some pictures but never posted them.

After I put in the order for my M4 I thought about getting the Individual Sakhir Orange contrasting stitching, which would have been ~$1800. I had a small window where I could have made that change. Unfortunately, I waited a little too long and my car suddenly went into production, and that opportunity was lost.

I saw the post about using fabric dye markers to stain the stitching, so I ordered a bunch of orange fabric dye markers in different shades of orange from all of the different manufacturers. I tried them all on an old t-shirt and picked the one that popped the most.

By default, the standard stitching for black is Silverstone Gray, not white, so the dye starts off being a little muted because of the gray base. Also, there's a lot of stitching in an M3/M4. With the full leather option, there's even more stitching on the dash and on the door cards. Once you start, you're committed, and you have to do the entire interior. You have to work on sections about a foot or two at a time, back and forth with the marker, three of four times, then wipe off the excess with a dry cloth. Some of the dye stays on the leather, so you have to go back and wipe that off with a damp cloth. It ends up being a very tedious process. I worked on it for about 2-3 hours a day, with breaks, over about 3 days. In the M4, it can get uncomfortable trying to get to all of the stitching in the back seat, including on the top and side of the headrests. I ended up with lots of aches and pains.

The immediate end result is that I had somewhat muted orange stitching. People who saw it said that it looked good. A friend has an M3 with a Sakhir Orange interior and it never looked as good as the bright Sakhir Orange stitching where the sections of black and SO meet. Red or blue would probably give better results. It fades over time. It still looks distinctively unique and the stitching is definitely not gray.

My wife ordered her Individual San Marino Blue M3 with Individual Polar Blue stitching. Her interior looks awesome!

Seems like a lot of work, I might try to tackle it the way you did just working on it couple hours a day. I wouldn't mind a muted red as long as it's red and it contrasts. How many pens did you end up using? Overall do you think it's worth it?