stanjohn12

Oh God , I think i just spoiled my beautiful leather seats by just using Meguiar's Gold Class Leather cleaner conditioner. It seems my leather is fading and getting darker. WTF have I done . It would have been better if i never touched the leather with these BS solutions

It was much softer , supple and looked very healthy. It just looked a little darker than usual due to the dark pants i wear to office and thought I could just rub them off with the cream. The slightly dark stains did go but now it looks so dry and seems like the leather faded at some places. I am so upset.

I just applied it on the side inserts near the driver side door seats and am not happy at all with the result. I thought the conditioner would make it more moist and softer not dryer and make it fade. I even used it on the front drivers center armrest and at places i can see tiny dry spots. I'm not sure if it was because I didn't use enough of the meguiars cream or whether the cloth i used was not clean enough or the cream is just too strong that it dries up the leather instead of making it healthier. I feel like a total jack *** now.

What do i do , I need your serious help guys. Maybe I didn't do it right , I'm not sure what went wrong. I need to get it back in shape. Will post pics soon.

EJC

First mistake was getting light colored leather. With use and wear the lighter colors will always pick up and SHOW the dirt. We have this problem with my wife's ES350.

My experience is to use LEXOL cleaner and Treatment on the leather. It is a 2 step process but works well. They also suggest letting the Treatment/Conditioner be left alone for a couple of hours after application.

That said I discovered by accident the "Tough Stuff" carpet cleaner works well to get the dark dirt off the leather. I do not let it sit. I spray it on and wipe it right off. I have done this several times with no ill effects and then applied the Lexol Conditioner.

My IS250 and Boxster have black leather, absolutely no problems with this color for care and cleaning!

RDIS250AWD

iTrader: (7)

I have the same interior. I use Lexol though. Good stuff. A lot of the guys on here use It as well

dackp143

iTrader: (3)

Damn, my personal experience is to stay away from Meguiar's products. They are usually nicer than the generic, but Meguiar's makes cheap product all together. I don't know what state you are in, but if you are in Georgia I can point you to a solid product. With a nice car, stick tot he professional grade car products, not the Walmart/AutoZone stuff.

stanjohn12

Actually i preferred light color as it would look royal and knew first hand i would have some difficulty in maintaining it. But didn't know it would be this serious. Plus there were no tough stains on my seats since I am the only one driving the car alone most of the time and parents ride along occasionally. Only problem was the driver side seat side's were a little dark which i think was from the dye of my dark colored pants which wasn't much. So i just tried to get them off and thought I would make it look brand new which instead gave me a totally opposite reaction. It made it now look dry and old as if the leather has been used for 10 years or something. Its fading. Oh God I hope the Lexol thing works or if there is something else better to save my leather.

stanjohn12

Man I was under the impression that Meguiars products were the best. Damn I've been fooled clearly.

I'm going to try out Lexol now. I've done a very big mistake , I will never buy anything again without doing proper research here on club Lexus. I also have a Meguiars swirl remover 2.0 polish which I am so damn scared to use now. It's just a waste of money for me but won't use their products ever again.

EJC

If it makes you feel better, I use only Meguiers on my paint, and have for 20yrs. I find their products dependable and work well.

I have no idea what went wrong with the Leather Conditioner, I have used it (not 1st choice) and encountered no problems. Stuff does happen which is why they also have the weasel clause "try product on a small non- visible area first"

stanjohn12

How's Leatherique for our beige leather perforated seats ? Some recommend it above Lexol here in CL. Is it that good ?

stanjohn12

Thanks EJC it does make me feel slightly better that i didn't totally waste my money. Anyways I don't know if something went wrong with the way i cleaned or if the real effect starts after a while. The dirt did come off and the pads were all dark as soon as i wiped it with the cream on it but the problem was after that. I was wiping the applied location with a clean cloth as instructed in the bottle behind and the leather dried up all of sudden.

Even while i was applying the cream it was just seeping in. I didn't know if this was normal or that i need to apply more of that cream to rejuvenate it with whatever oil is inside the cream.

It's not that bad but now it's like you can notice slight creases on the side as if it's used for so many years.In truth it's just 2 years old(2010 model) I will take some pictures and post it in a while.

stanjohn12

I'd really appreciate it if you could give me the names of such professional grade products. I don't mind spending on these products as long as it's safe and I can do it by myself.

I just need some good products for Leather cleaning/maintenance , good wax and a good polish to remove slight swirls. The color of my car is Metallic granite Mica and the seats are perforated Beige Leather seats.

embolism

was the car bought new? I ask b/c unless you know what has been used to clean the seats before you, it might not be the Meg's that caused the damage.

all leather except in some really high end cars, comes coated from the factory. This means that whatever you put on them will not penetrate into the leather, but sit on the topcoat. I seldom use conditioners b/c they don't penetrate. All you need is a mild leather cleaner, and a protectant. This will keep the topcoat clean so dirt doesn't abrade it away as you sit on it day after day, and protected so stains won't have a chance to set.

Once the topcoat is gone, then you access the dyed leather and can rub off the dye if you are not careful. Some people that use abrasive products on their leather like magic erasers have found this out the hard way. The erasers worked great the first few times, but once the topcoat was sanded off, then the dye layer was exposed which is essentially the same as burning through the clearcoat on your car into the paint layer underneath. Unfortunately, the only thing to do in this case is to redye the leather. If this route is taken, make sure they also put on another layer of topcoat, or the same thing could happen again.

With no pictures, it's hard to suggest a course of action. The cheapest method would involve the leatherique twins. It is an involved process that I've read about but never tried (black 2007 leather that looks as good as new) but may work for you since you describe the seats as old and dried out looking. Good luck...

stanjohn12

It was bought used from Lexus showroom and the seats were all well maintained. It's still under warranty for another month or so too. They have surely cleaned the seats prior to my purchase with something and the seats looked really neat ,soft and healthy.

After 2 months of use I had my pant dye come on the sides of my seats , though not totally visible it was still dark and annoying too see. So i thought of wiping it off. Took some pics but the it was in the evening , the lighting won't be that good to judge exactly. But I'll post the pics within a couple of hours so you guys can assess and tell me if the leather is really damaged or not.

stanjohn12

If you can see closely you can see cracks / creases. And it seems whiter and kind of fading I;m not sure about that.





Here is another pic of the passenger seat side. I've used a little bit of meguiars cleaner here as well but I don't see much fading or cracks here.



Have I screwed up my driver side seats ? If you guys need even clearer pics will take it early tomorrow morning.

stanjohn12

And another thing I would like to add is as I was applying the cream onto the leather as given in the instructions , the cream just kept seeping in to the leather or drying up and the 2nd step according to the instructions was to wipe off with a clean cloth. But what's there to wipe off ? All the dirt got caught in the pads itself and the leather seats were just plain dry. There was nothing to wipe off ?

Does anyone have any idea why this happened ? or if I did something wrong ?

UDel

Gold Class is not going to ruin your leather, if it ruined leather word would have gotten out and they would have been sued. Post some pics so we can understand what you are talking about with it being "dry" or faded and what the difference is. Most people prefer their leather to have a dry matte look instead of it feeling and looking moist/greasy. If you bought your car used it may have had some kind of greasy conditioner on it that made it feel "moist" and by using Gold Class you simply cleaned that conditioner/coating off so it looks more natural. Your leather has a protective polyurethane coating so no conditioner or cleaner actually reaches the actual leather, it just cleans or sits on top of the coating but it still can improve the look and feel. For cleaning Lexus leather, the owners manual says to use a diluted Woolite and water solution. I would use what is recommended in your owners manual to clean your leather and then decide if you want to condition it. Leatherique is good for cleaning/conditioning leather. Zaino and Griots products are also good. For really stubborn stains Wolfgang has a citrus based leather cleaner that is very good. Relax, I highly doubt you damaged your leather in any way using Gold Class, if you somehow did you need to contact Meguiars.