Interior Leather Care

[Brett Dikeman]

>  > This my first car with leather interior, so I could use some wisdom/input.
>>  What are folks using to care for the leather interiors of their beasts?
>>  Conditioners?  Cleaners? Protection products?
>>  Now that I have had the car for a while I need to start getting after
>  > the interior.
>Chuck,
>I've used Lexol on mine with good results.
>http://www.lexol.com/

Seconded.  When I did my steering wheel after buying the car- the 
amount of crap that came off was staggering.

For best results, the interior+leather should be warm as 
possible(Lexol actually recommends doing cleaning+conditioning in the 
sun).  Use a damp cloth with the soap- you want lots of foamy stuff. 
Then dry with another towel paying particular attention to seams and 
such.

When that's all done, spray the conditioner on the seats and use a 
very small cloth to spread it around.  Get the leather wet with 
conditioner.  Let it sit.  If it soaks in immediately, go over that 
area again; particular bad spots for drying out are the headrests and 
tops of the seats since they get blasted with sun.  Come back in 
15-20 minutes and buff with a dry, clean towel.  When you're done you 
may find the leather very, very 'grippy' for a day or two.  Normal, 
and it will only be for a couple of days until the conditioner's 
absorbed completely.  Bonus- there'a great leathery smell when you're 
done :-)

Note- if you spray conditioner onto the seats, get a cloth slightly 
damp and go over all the non-leather surfaces :-)

Oh, also- Lexol's vynlex does nicely on just about everything from 
the pleather door panel material to the dashboard.  With a chopped 
paintbrush or toothbrush it'll clean up switch surfaces.  Again- the 
dashboard was FILTHY(you couldn't tell with the black interior, but 
the cloth came up dark grey); I've noticed a lot of grey interior 
200q20v's have this kind of dirt accumulation.  The lexol stuff will 
lift it nearly instantly.  Another plus- Vynlex is water-based, so 
you can buff it off after cleaning to get the desired sheen, and it's 
easily removed with just a damp towel if you hate it.

Brett
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