Working On The Seats

I had some time after the kids went to bed this evening to do a quick project on the Beast.

Wow!  Ugly seats!

You can see from the picture that the seats are in a sad state.  This is the driver seat, obviously, but the rest look about the same if you haven't yet looked through the picture gallery (link to the right --> ).  I decided to give it a quick treatment with Griot's Garage Leather Rejuvenator to see how it would turn out.  Here is a quick break down of the steps:

1. Get rid of larger dust and debris on the seat with a vacuum and/or brush (done recently so I left it off this time)
2. Clean the seat of heavier dirt with Interior Cleaner
3. Apply Leather Rejuvenator by hand, working it into seams and crevices
4. Wipe or buff off and reapply as necessary

Tools for the job:

Cleaning tools

The cotton cloth is for the cleaner and the gloves for the leather goop.  It is about the consistency of motor oil though the smell is better IMO. ^_^  For this application I plan to leave it sit overnight and observe the results in the morning.  Normally one would apply it with a cloth or sponge and buff it in for a few minutes.  For leather in bad shape the recommendation is to leave it sit on overnight and then buff as needed.  I will likely do a few applications of this throughout the weekend considering what I am starting with.  Of course, I will snap and update as I go.

I doused the seat in cleaner and set to work.  To my surprise, very little dirt actually came up from the seat.  It is either worn pretty clean somehow or the dirt is that stubborn.  I worked on it a few minutes and noticed that most of the cleaner was actually drying on the surface pretty quickly.  In lieu of just soaking the seat with cleaner I decided to move on to the rejuvenator and let the leather drink that instead.

Post cleaning

You can see from this shot that the seat is looking slightly darker due to absorbing the moisture from the cleaner.  At this point I put on the gloves and got ready for the rejuvenator.  The gloves are recommended so as to avoid the stuff soaking into your hands but I found that it also seems to make working it into the leather a bit easier as well.  According to the label it works better when it and the leather are warm, either used recently or having sit in the sun.  As the August heat has been in the 90s the last couple days I see no reason to warm either any further. ^_^

I squirted it on pretty heavily and was amazed at how much the leather drank in as I worked the stuff into the seams and cracks.  I did a couple heavy applications on the top and bottom alternating.  The smaller cracks seemed to disappear a bit but I feel this is due to absorbing the moisture and the darkening effect of the rejuvenator.  The product states that on application you will notice a distinct darkening of the leather but that it will return to normal after a few days.  I am not concerned either way but we will see what happens.  Over the weekend I will do a couple more quick applications, lighter now that I've got a good soak on the first.  I will make sure to do a comparison with the passenger and rear seats as well.

Top after Rejuvenator

Bottom after Rejuvenator