Getting Lexus leather softer

[imported_Surfer]

Thanks jfelbab, I think I will have to give this a try.

I have. that stuff as well, and its excellent. One of our trucks is an 05' Lexus LX470 and the seats are very soft. Have friends who have a beach house here they use for vacation, have an older LS400, think a 99', there, leather seats are rock hard.

 

[lexusgs]

I cleaned my seats with some woolite and water mixture last night and scrubbed pretty good but did not get much dirt up. A little bit what wiped off was kind of a blackish blueish color which I thought may be some dye. I then got some Fast Orange from autozone tonight and tried it on a small portion of the seat. After rubbing it in the towel was pretty dirty and had alot more of that blackish/blue stuff which looked to be some dye. When I inspected the seats closer I noticed that the ugly shiny waxy top portion was pretty much removed where I used the fast orange and the whole area was generally the same color and with a non waxy matte look. Where I did not use Fast Orange there was a shiney waxy surface on the top of the grain but in between it on the lower portions of the grain was the more non waxy slightly lighter matte look.



Now I think I may know why the softening/conditioning products have not been working and why portions of my leather are harder, rougher, more waxy feeling and looking then they should be because there is some kind of buildup of grime, grease, extra dye that the cleaners I have used could not remove and that is what I was feeling and what was not allowing the softners/conditioners to work. I know that some people do not recommend using Fast Orange or citrus based cleaners on your leather interior especially if it looks like some dye maybe coming off on the rag but from my experience and from reading about some others it is removing the stuff that is giving parts of the leather the rough waxy hard look and feel and possibly stopping conditioners/softners from doing their proper job. I think I may do the front seats and middle of the rears with this Fast Orange once to get this stuff off and then do a full Leatherique treatment. I don't plan on using Fast Orange as a regular cleaner but as something to get it to where I can start a proper conditioning/softening process. I would think since the leather has a protective coat and this Fast Orange is safe enough to wash your hands with that it should not harm it doing it once. I tried it on my moms 99 TL with tan interior that has softer leather but had dirtier seats and the fast orange really cleaned the portion up well and I noticed there was only dirt that came up on the and no signs of any kind of dye even though I scrubbed harder. It would seem odd that no dye came off in one car where it appeared a little bit came off on the other so maybe it was not dye after all.

 

[revamp]

Just as an fyi to some in this thread:



I have an '04 Ford Focus SVT w/ full leather recaro seating. The seats are awesome, except that the leather has the "hard, waxy" feel that was described by the OP.



Wanting to soften the leather up, I went the Leatherique route and dedicated my summer last year to rejuvinating my seats. Long story short, after more than 4 24hr-long treatments in the hot sun, my seats (although very clean) are not any softer. I even spoke w/ the Leatherique owner for advice, but my seats have that protective coating on them that just doesn't lend itself to softening regimens.



My advice is to keep tending to your seats, keep them clean, but accept that they are never going to be the soft, supple, "buttery" leather seats that you are envisioning. Save yourself the time, money, and energy of the multiple treatments that I went through.



Note: the leatherique products are amazing and I've used them with great results on other, non-coated leather products. The customer support for Leatherique is great as well, but it can't make the impossible possible.