My 97 Coupe has the tan interior, like most cars, but I've always been more of a fan of black interiors. Has anyone dyed their carpet black? I've heard a few people say that these carpets won't hold dye, so what would I need to use?

 

Black Celulose spray can

 

I can't speak to Jaguar carpet specifically, but here in Texas, everything fades badly in the sun, particularly carpet. I once restored a car for which no molded replacement carpet was available and so I recolored it with SEM Colorcoat in a spray can as it happened to be an absolute perfect match for the OEM color. It turned out to look absolutely fantastic as far as the car show appeal, but it definitely changed the texture of the carpet if that is important to you. It was no longer soft and supple, but took on a stiffer, rougher feel. It took several cans as its not like spraying a few square feet of surface, rather it has to basically soak in and coat all the fibers. The process was to use a very stiff brush, spray a very small area, like 3 x 3 inches and then use the brush to work it in to the fibers, keeping the fibers sort of moving and separated until the carrier flashes off. You have to keep working it otherwise it just glues all the fibers together and you want to minimize that. And you have to keep cleaning the brush as the bristles get glued together too. It still glues some of the carpet fibers together and thickens them and that's why the texture changes. Now it does soften back up a little over the years from regular wear and vacuuming before every show, but it will forever lose the "luxurious" feel and always feel more like a commercial carpet. But listening to the people looking it over at car shows, I never heard anybody say anything that sounded like they suspected that the carpet had been recolored with a rattle can. I don't know how well it would work for a color change tho. What I did was simply recolor a faded blue carpet back to the original blue. A color change may be too much to expect from the method.

 

rule of sorts(as I've been told once) is that non organics won't dye in a predictable way, but most organics will ie cotton, wool etc,
Cheers!