Restoring Leather Seats

[_Brenon_]

I have a 02 GTI with tan leather seats. I purchased it last November and it's obvious that the PO did not take care of the car.

The seats have a fair amount of cracks in them and the leather is pretty hard/stiff. I bought some mcguires leather conditioner from auto zone last week and finally was able to apply it to my seats, it was cloudy today so the sun wasn't beating down on them making them too hot.

My question is: How often should I use the conditioner to get my leather soft again? I wanted to get some input because I don't want to "over do it" and cause more damage.

[_Brenon_]

[Jman5000]

What's cracked is the PVC coating on top of the leather. No amount of oily conditioner will change anything. It'll look a tiny bit better for a little while and then it'll evaporate.

Restoration is more "body shop" than you may think

[_Brenon_]

Thanks for the video.

I can deal with the cracks. They're not split open cracks, more just crack indents ya know what I mean?

What I want to fix is the stiffness of the leather. Pretty much it's dried up from the sun. I've used the conditioner once this week and on the side parts of the seat and the part where your back rests has started softening up a little. The bottom middle part where your ass sits is still pretty stiff though.

How often is TOO often to use the conditioner is more what I'm trying to figure out.

[Jman5000]

Throw out the meguiars

http://www.1z-usa.com/how-to-clean-leather.html

You have pigmented leather. You may able to turn back a little damage w the right product/process but it's likely too far gone.

[TOGWT]

See article "Leather Pigmentation Restoration" - http://www.autopia.org/forum/autopia...ml#post1488560

[crrdslcvr6]

Checkout leatherique. You may need multiple applications based on your discription of the leather.

[_Brenon_]

Thanks for the help guys

I'm gonna try it that way

[Jman5000]

If you use Leatherique, you need their restoration products. The cleaner/rejuvenator will be an expensive time consuming process w/no change to your seats.

[_Brenon_]

If you use Leatherique, you need their restoration products. The cleaner/rejuvenator will be an expensive time consuming process w/no change to your seats.

With no change to my seats? So there is no fixing them?

[Jman5000]

With no change to my seats? So there is no fixing them?

No conditioner will fix cracks.


You have to repair the damage and essentially replace the damaged surface

[corall15018]

While dealing with leather seats you need to take care of moisture which can damage the seats and make cracks in them. In most cases water sweeps inside the vehicle through doors, windows or sunroof. So you need to check the sealing at these places so that no water sweeps inside the vehicle.