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What's the best stuff to clean leather seats?

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Old 06-17-2009, 07:20 PM
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Canary94GT
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Default What's the best stuff to clean leather seats?

The luxury white and blue seats on my '65 look pretty grungy (they're still white but with some dirty gray marks). They've been like this for quite a while since it has just been sitting in the garage.

My dad years ago used some saddle soap and said that worked pretty good, but I can tell it is hard for him to remember how well it worked.

I see products like Meguiars leather cleaner and conditioner. How well would this work?

Here are the products available at my local schucks store (a convenience but not required to be there)

Thank you
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Old 06-17-2009, 07:58 PM
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jcoby
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the bmw guys seem to like leatherique a lot. it's not so much a cleaner as a dye/filler.
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Old 06-17-2009, 08:14 PM
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stangtjk
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These cars had vinyl seats not leather.
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Old 06-17-2009, 08:37 PM
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Canary94GT
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orly?

/embarrassed



How should I clean the vinyl then?
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Old 06-17-2009, 08:59 PM
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4reboy
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i'd imagine leaner cleaner would work on vinyl, I can't be too sure though. Meguirs products are good so you can't go wrong with some kind of vinyl/leather/seat shampoo and conditioner.
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Old 06-17-2009, 09:04 PM
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Canary94GT
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Thanks 4reboy. I don't have any leather cleaner or anything yet.

I want to make sure I use something that won't have any long-term effects such as cracking, but I am sure you knew that.
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Old 06-17-2009, 10:04 PM
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any of those products shouldn't crack it, if anything they will keep it from cracking. The shampoo and conditioner for cars will keep it soft, whereas if you used something like armor-all on vinyl it would probably dry it out

I'm not 100% on this but it makes logical sense to me
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Old 06-17-2009, 11:54 PM
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that actually does make sense... though armor all on car seats i'd consider near equivalent to suicide when in a car crash

So I bought some Meguiars extreme Vinal/Rubber protectant. Seemed to get a lot of dirt off my seats, but I think they are beyond just using regular cleaners like that. Also tried some ~8:1 water to simple green solution and that didn't seem to work too well either. Oh well, thank you for your help guys. Still looks (and smells) much better than it did
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Old 06-18-2009, 12:10 AM
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tx65coupe
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I use Meguars leather cleaner conditioner on my cars black vinyl interior to keep it from drying out. It works nicely.
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Old 06-18-2009, 03:19 AM
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4reboy
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Originally Posted by Canary94GT
that actually does make sense... though armor all on car seats i'd consider near equivalent to suicide when in a car crash

So I bought some Meguiars extreme Vinal/Rubber protectant. Seemed to get a lot of dirt off my seats, but I think they are beyond just using regular cleaners like that. Also tried some ~8:1 water to simple green solution and that didn't seem to work too well either. Oh well, thank you for your help guys. Still looks (and smells) much better than it did
hahaha yeah I only use armor all on plastics, but even then I have other products I use before I touch that.

good to hear you got a lot of it off, I think it's just going to take a lot of elbow greese, maybe even take a brush of some sort or the green side of a soft kitchen sponge to get in the grooves to get the rest of that dirt out. be careful with using the rough side of a sponge though, make sure its not toooo rough, test it out on a small area first

Also maybe try a stronger degreaser? I would be afraid of it making the vinyl fade though.

just what I would probably do!
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