My 1997 XJ6 4.0 is in fine shape, and while I have used Maguire's combo cleaner and conditioner for the leather, I am thinking it does not need any more cleaning.

The car is 18 years old, always garaged, but the leather still seems a bit dry. Here in Denver, Colorado, the air is super-dry anyway.

A Bentley owner I know advises "Leatherique", another fella suggests Griot's.

Suggestions? It's my daily driver here in the city and I intend to have the car last way beyond the 68,000 miles on the odometer now...

 

Do not have to much experience in the subject, but I used leather honey a few weeks ago and I think it was great. Don't know much about the others to compare it to though.

 

I'm a fan of Gliptone.

 

Yeah, like an "oil thread" going to be a lot of personal opinions, but I do hear good things about all of the above

After extensive (read: too much!) research myself, I picked up Gliptone. I can't really say which is better though.

.

 

BASIC ingredient needed to moisture leather seat is lanolin oil, any brand with high content of this ingredient would be best to make leather seats subtle and soft but not necessarily shiny

 

Weisberg,

I apologize in advance for the length of my reply, but you asked!

I have used Gliptone and its conditioner works very well to soften leather. It also has a strong, not unpleasant aroma that a friend on the Jag-Lovers forum likens to an "Old English Men's Club," or some such romantic image. It definitely smells like something, but I'd be hard pressed to say what. The odor fades in a week or two, so if you don't like it you don't have to live with it for long. I can recommend the conditioner, but I have not found the Gliptone cleaner to be particularly effective on anything but surface dirt, so it is not my first choice. None of our local auto parts stores carries Gliptone, so I shopped around online and purchased from Auto Barn.

For various reasons I have tried Lexol, Eagle One, Meguiar's and Mothers in some of our vehicles. The conditioners all work quite well, with possibly different degrees of penetration and re-softening. My purely subjective impression is that Gliptone's conditioner works the best of this group, but since I used all these products on entirely different cars, I can't defend this impression. The cleaners all seem similar to Gliptone, that is, used with a damp cloth and reasonably effective on surface dirt, but not doing much to clean imbedded dirt from the pores of the leather. If you never allow your leather to get dirty, and especially if you have a medical condition that prevents you from perspiring, then any of these cleaners will probably meet your needs.

However, I have used Leatherique products for nearly 20 years and have had amazing results with their Rejuvinator and Prestine Clean. I have also made extensive use of their leather dyes for freshening worn spots and recoloring replacement seat covers, and limited use of their crack filler for repairing cracks and holes. Their products are a bit more expensive than store brands, but buying them in the larger size bottles (32 oz.?) lowers the cost-per-ounce. The products have a shelf life of many years, even the dyes. You order Leatherique products directly from Leatherique or their designated distributor for your region. I believe they have representatives in Canada and the U.K., and possibly Australia as well. I consider their products the best you can buy.

It is important to study the Leatherique website and follow the instructions because the Rejuvinator (oil) and Prestine Clean (cleaner) are used in a different order than most leather cleaner/conditioner combos. You condition first, then clean, then condition again as necessary.

The process works best on a warm, sunny day. First you vacuum the leather thoroughly to remove any loose dust or debris, then use a damp cloth to wipe away any obvious dirt. Allow to dry (if your cloth is just damp, by the time you've cleaned all the seats the first one will be dry).

Apply the Rejuvinator generously to all leather surfaces. Avoid vinyl, which won't absorb the oil and you'll just have to wipe it all off, and also avoid cloth, which will just soak up the oil and possibly darken. To avoid wasting oil that would be absorbed in a sponge or cloth, and to really work the oil into the leather, I use my hands, sometimes bare, sometimes wearing thin rubber gloves if I need my hands to not be "ultra-soft" for a day.

With all the doors and windows closed so the interior of the car will heat up in the sun, allow the oil to soak in. Check for dry spots periodically and apply more oil to those. After a few hours, you will see that deeply-imbedded dirt and grime has floated to the surface of the leather. Use the Prestine Clean on a clean, soft cloth to wipe away all the surface oil/dirt/grime. Do this treatment on your steering wheel, and unless you're an obsessive-compulsive hand washer, you will be horrified by how much dirt comes out of the leather. I had to repeat the cleaning process on our '88's and '93's steering wheels several times before the cleaning cloth came away clean. Even our '04 took three or four treatments.

Now your leather has been deep cleaned and conditioned. But if it's been awhile since you've conditioned the leather, it probably needs further treatment. Apply more Rejuvinator and allow it to soak in again, adding more to any dry spots that develop. After another few hours, use Prestine Clean on a clean, soft cloth to wipe away excess Rejuvinator and allow the seats to dry overnight.

If it's been a really long time since you conditioned the leather, repeat this process again in a few weeks or a month to fully resoften the leather. Earlier this year I did this to our X350, which probably had not been conditioned since it was new. After two treatments a month apart, the difference in the softness and "feel" of the leather is amazing.

We purchased our '88 XJ40 in the mid-'90s, and the leather had already become nearly "cardboard hard." At the recommendation of members of the Jag-Lovers forum, I purchased the Leatherique products, and after several applications of the Rejuvinator the leather was restored to near-new suppleness. I've been sold ever since.

Leatherique products have very mild, pleasant odors that fade quickly.

In an ideal world, we should probably clean and condition our leather 3 or 4 times a year, but I confess I only get around to it every year or two. Mostly I just wipe the leather off with a damp cloth after vacuuming the interior. My my Brit friend from the Jag-Lovers forum alternates treatments with Leatherique and Gliptone, and I'm considering following that pattern on our '04.

Disclaimer: I have no connection with either Gliptone or Leatherique. In my experience, Leatherique offers "better" online instructions (Gliptone's instructions are minimal, Leatherique's are a bit amateurish but more comprehensive). Leatherique offers more personal customer service (you can call them and talk to a human being), but it's very "Mom & Pop," and their website is quite primitive and thrown together, so you have to hunt around for all the info. The last time I placed an order I think the company was being run by the daughter of the founder.

Cheers,

Don

 

Wow. Thanks!

 

I've been using Lexol for a long time on many cars and it seems to work well. Probably for that reason I never tried anything else. I first got it at a place that sold saddles long before it was available at auto parts stores.

 

Don,

How does the conditioner manage to soak into the newer leathers like your X350?

I understood the surface dye to be similar to a plastic paint.

 

Excellent post, Don.
As I said before, I'm a fan of Gliptone, but should probably mention it is the only product I've tried, albeit after exhaustive research as Weisberg has just initiated.
Gliptone have a product called Glipstick, that I found quite effective on spots the cleaner didn't get, including lady's make-up product of some sort and other stains of unknown origin.

 

plums,

That's a great question. The surface dyes are very similar to a thin latex paint, but since they are dyes, the pigment is ground very, very fine. When properly applied, the dye leaves a very thin layer of color on the surface of the leather, but this layer is porous, which allows the leather to breathe and also allows the Leatherique conditioner to soak into the leather.

You have probably read posts from owners who have used Leatherique dyes to recolor or restore their seats, then had trouble conditioning the leather. That is because they applied the dye too thickly and clogged up the pores. This is also the reason some owners' new dye jobs have cracked or flaked off. The secret is to thin the Leatherique dye with about 10% distilled water (per Leatherique's website), and apply two or three very thin coats, just enough to produce the desired color, but not so much as to plug up the pores in the leather.

I think I read that while hides were traditionally "dip" dyed in vats, they are now sprayed. I was a little worried about conditioning the leather in our '04 because the surface has a "solid" look to it. But whatever the dying process, the Leatherique Rejuvinator soaked right into the leather with no problems, and I was once again surprised and gratified at the results.

Cheers,

Don

 

Thanks for the explanation.

As usual, personal experience trumps theory

The mad scientist thinks that piping in heat from one of those
older hair dryers with a hose might be particularly helpful.

 

Perhaps, but far less pseudo-science and reliance on "someone said on the internet".