HOW TO: Professionally maintain and protect your leather seats so they NEVER crack

[Graham_A_M]

HI Mods... you might want to make this post into a sticky... since it should be always available for ALL to see... but anyway

HI Everybody... this is Graham's professional advice for: how to clean and maintain your cars leather upholstery.

All right... well the story is: is that I used to be a professional detailer a few years ago... and there I learned of how to properly maintain leather seats... dashes... armrests... headrests and everything else leather.. including leather jackets.. wallets.. or anything else you can think of.

The Goal is to keep the leather in tip-top shape so that it NEVER cracks (which is ONLY due to dryness) and generally keep the seats looking new.

Just so you know... Leather is just cow skin.... that’s all it is.... its nothing special at all... like human skin... it also has pores.. and can also dry out too.
Both of the above are real problems... if the pores fill up with grease and dirt in time (like human skin would if it is never cleaned) then the pores are filled solid and the leather cannot breath.... it also cannot take in moisture of any kind... so they dry out and crack (human skin does the same if not properly taken care of as you probably know) Since there is no flesh behind the cow skin anymore to keep it moisturized... the responsibility is now on you. So the steps and things about to be mentioned are how to clean the pores... and keep the seats properly moisturized so they never dry out and therefore crack.

The first pic is of the drivers seat of the car that I just bought... obviously the seats were never properly cleaned... otherwise they wouldn't be shiny from all the grease like they are... the seat pictured is mine.. I'm sure your aren't far off...




That shiny-ness isn't normal at all.. thats actually from the grease and other stuff in the leather pores. Leather should not be shiny... it should be dull like this. Also the leather feels very hard and resistant to any flexing... since there is so much dirt in the pores... the leather barely flexes at all.


so this is what you do.... you take a normal scrub brush (just like the one you would use for your fingers) as well a very mild cleaner. DO NOT USE A STRONG CLEANER!!!!!!! Engine degreaser is not a good idea!... if you wouldn't use that to clean your skin... dont use that on the leather.... (You think I'm joking about writing that dis-claimer? People have done that in the past so I wrote that to let you know!!!!) Use a very mild cleaner such as watered down pine-sol in a spray bottle. Water it down 2 parts pine-sol 1 part Mr. Clean or such.. or some other type of mild cleaner. Just a simple house-hold one.. but one with out oil of any sort.

Then scrub it down like so:





Imeditately wipe down the seat... as soon as you can so the dirt doesn't sink back into the pores again. This will be how the rag will look probably... if its yellow or brown... dont talk to me ever again. (jokes)






Once you've done that complete to ALL the leather parts of the car... such as the head-rests... back of the seat (dont forget the rear seats too!)

as well as the shift-boot... arm rests in the doors and and the rear seat arm rests.. they should look like this:

This pic is of a freshly cleaned seat... notice the lack of shiny-ness.. its actually really quite dull... the same way the car was when it was brand new.




Thats exactly how the seats SHOULD look after they've been cleaned. NIce and clean.. they will feel twice as soft too... since the leather can bend freely now that the dirt is removed from the pores.


Next stop is moisturizing the seat:.. remember at the top of the post when I said that since the Leather is removed from the cow... the owness is on you towards moisturizing it? well that brings us to our next step..

To moisturize the seat... you need some really good stuff... this cheap crap is just that.. therefore avoid Wal-mart.. most automotive stores sell good seat moisturizer... mothers is not very good stuff... but unfortunately its the best stuff you can get at most automotive stores such as Canadian Tire or such... like pep-boys or whatever. Basically dont cheap out on the stuff... the better the stuff is.. the better it'll work. Also try a detailing studio where people pay outrageous sums of money to have a person do all this stuff for them... most detailing facilities can definately give you suggestions on the best stuff to use... Being a former professional detailer myself... I REALLY REALLY like "Car-brite" products.... or "Production detail supply" stuff

The stuff I have pictured is by "Production detail supply" this stuff is amazing.. its called prime... and does exactly what I am talking about... moisturizing the seats... its has a very important ingredient called "Lanolin oil" which is key.. that stuff is the liquid that makes the difference right there...

and if finding any sort of actual "Leather moisturizer" is a problem... as a last resort use human skin moisturizer... it works well too. but you need LOTS of it since there is LOTS of leather to be done... and its all very very dry and therefore needs LOTS. So expect to use about a cup full for all your cars interior. Try to make sure the skin lotion also has lanolin oil.

This is the stuff that I used for the pictorial... as well as for all the limos that I used to detail.




And yes that is Heathers car in the background.
Do not use these so called "Leather cleaner *AND* moisturizer"s they are a joke.... you need to entirely separate chemicals to do this... you cant take a sponge and throw some of that crap on the seats and expect it to work... how can a person just use handcreme and never once EVER wash they're hands? would the creme work? not really because there is gobs of dirt in the pores.... so how does the lotion get into the skin? barely eh? Leather is WAY worse... so forget about that dual-purpose crap.


When coating the seats.. use a normal (CLEAN!!!!) sponge... just like a household one...




Drop a gob of the leather moisturizer on to the seat... and rub it in with the sponge... leave lots of it remaining on the seat... don’t worry the leather will absorb the remaining lotion... basically you want to apply it a little more then what was done in the picture. but just do that as pictured.


Give the seat about an hour to absorb all the conditioner in it. Then re-apply the conditioner using the same sponge as needed to all the dry spots (usually the large flat surfaces) After an hour after that... you can wipe off all the excess conditioner if you choose too... otherwise leave it overnight... it will all get absorbed in time.

Well.. that’s it right there... don’t forget to re-moisturize all the seats and everything else that you cleaned... You'll be amazed at how soft the leather will be now... its really something..
If you want to keep your seats looking great forever... you need to do this on a monthly basis for the seats that get used the most... every second month for the passenger seat or the rear seats that don’t get used as much.


There you go.... try this out and see what you think... please leave a post on this thread with the result you've experienced..

This post was lots of trouble to make.. so if it helps.. please leave me some Karma.. thanks to all..

[thrasher]

I'll have to remember to show this to my Dad, I wish I had leather seats, good write up.

[max626]

Very nice gona try that on mines, got any after pics though?

[skiingman]

Karma for Graham, excellent tutorial.

[Graham_A_M]

yes I have pics of it after... the seats just look greasy. its not really worthy of a pic but I'll post if for those who want to see it finished as its drying regardless. Just looks like its been smeared with lotion.. nothing special.

Thanks for the Karma

[schwinn]

Karma baby!

One critical comment, though: FOCUS! All of the pictures look slightly blurry, but the first one is pretty out. But that's just me being picky.

[Graham_A_M]

its the camera... it sucks... the camera was left in the back of a limo... and nobody claimed it so I did... I should get a better one... its just a really cheap olympus 2.0 megapixel. I just had to buy a USB cable for it and I was off to the races... unfortunately it was the same camera that I used for the 200 pics of the 4000km /2500 mile trek back to Calgary... so we'll see how the pics turn out.

[Graham_A_M]

buy the way... thanks for the Gobs of Karma... if we can keep it flowing that would be great. This one post alone brought me from two green boxes to three... so thanks to all

[Jason]

It is a good write up. As soon as I get home from wakeboarding, i'm going to clean mine up!

[lac_frak]

So in your opinion should I be using mothers leather moisturizer or kerri hand lotion?

I really thought that mothers was the [shizzle] untill you pulled out that industrial strenght stuff. I've always used mothers....

[Graham_A_M]

Im not dissing "mothers car apperance prodcuts"... but compared to the ultra-high end grade that professional detailers use... its total crap. Like the waxes are good... but you need about 4 different applications all using different bottles to do as good of a job as a single coat of this Production detail supply wax called "La Cerra" The Le Cerra is a VERY quick and PHENOMINAL wax... and its REALLY cheap costing too.. ITs just out of this world.. here this was my RS using it.. right after a 15 minute wax and wipe off job.



Thats why you buy and use good stuff.. If I was using mothers.. it would have taken me well over an hour and multiple applications... to do the same quality shine. Thats why I advocate using good stuff.

use the Mothers stuff.. but tell me what you plan on using first... You'll need about a cup of it too: keep in mind.

[lac_frak]

Mothers is the best stuff I have access to...

Where can I get all those products your using? I just cleaned my drives seat and half of my passengers seat. I did multiple applications, it took about 1.5hours.

It takes me multiple coats to get anything even near that level of gloss on your car; you car looks like a turquise candy apple!

So yeah, let us know where you get these products.

[Graham_A_M]

Like I say: Go to a detailing place... perhaps an automotive dealership... they (very often) have a detailing studio right there... most of these places use professional stuff since Mothers and Meguliars stuff is basically targeted for people like you or I that have an afternoon to spend just polishing a car. Dealerships dont have that kind of time... they need to plow throught the cars really fast since the detailers get paid hourly or by the car... the more time it takes to do a good polish the less they make. Therefore they commonly use great stuff such as "Car Brite" or "Production Detail supply" or "LusterGlaze" etc.

[Mazdaman92]

That will help me out at work thanks man.

[tyler886]

Nice post. I'll keep this in mind if I ever get an LE or an LS.

-Tyler