What are the community thoughts on Lexol?

[chromecarz00]

I was a fan before, but I picked it up again and it doesn`t seem to do anything substantial. This is what my drivers seat looks like after a half hour of foaming and repeating:



I don`t feel like the cleaner isn`t doing much, as it looked almost exactly the same before. Thoughts/tips?

[The Guz]

There are better products. I am not a fan of it.

[Stokdgs]

That seat has a lot of blue jeans staining.. A lot of the perforations in the leather are plugged up with gunk..
Lexol for my needs, has never worked worth a darn - especially on good leather..
I have seen it do harm to good leather when used excessively..

There are much better products to use today, at the Store link above...

You might need to get a small leather cleaning brush to help get all that gunk out of all the creases in your seats...
Be careful, rub gently, have a clean white cotton towel there to wipe off the gunk and insure you are seeing any other color come off on that towel than the color of the leather, and you will be making progress in cleaning the seats..

If you want to really do it right, you may want to see about unplugging all those perforations in the seats too..
Takes a long time; Detailers have to do this all the time..

You may also see about getting a nice conditioner for the leather after you clean it all up too..
Good Luck !
Dan F

[pheerix]

I don`t like the conditioner anymore. Too sticky and smelly.

[ViperGuy21]

I hate it. Pretty sure I threw mine out. For cleaning, a diluted APC is awesome, and I really like Sonax leather cream for conditioning

[chromecarz00]

That seat has a lot of blue jeans staining.. A lot of the perforations in the leather are plugged up with gunk..
Lexol for my needs, has never worked worth a darn - especially on good leather..
I have seen it do harm to good leather when used excessively..

There are much better products to use today, at the Store link above...

You might need to get a small leather cleaning brush to help get all that gunk out of all the creases in your seats...
Be careful, rub gently, have a clean white cotton towel there to wipe off the gunk and insure you are seeing any other color come off on that towel than the color of the leather, and you will be making progress in cleaning the seats..

If you want to really do it right, you may want to see about unplugging all those perforations in the seats too..
Takes a long time; Detailers have to do this all the time..

You may also see about getting a nice conditioner for the leather after you clean it all up too..
Good Luck !
Dan F

Thanks all for the input!

I`m mostly interested in getting the wrinke lines out, specifically the staining on them. I`m open to checking out the perforations though. Do you have any tutorials you could direct me to that would have either of these?

Thanks,

Wasim

[Pats300zx]

There are better products. I am not a fan of it.

I agree 100 %%%%%%. I actually got a free bottle of the Lexol 3 in 1 at Detail Fest. It`s basically a leather AIO that cleans, conditioners, and protects. It has been regulated to "shoe duty"

[Bunky]

I never liked the smell so never tried it.

[JBM]

There is a poster on Facebook who is in the leather biz and says to clean it, thats it. Dont condition it at all. Of coarse im not sure if the poster is aware of the no dressing dressings that are made now a days, like the Ultima one I use.

But diluted apc is what is suggested to use on a dirty seat, then a wet towel weekly.

[chromecarz00]

How much to dilute? Any good links/tutorials to get me on my way?

[Stokdgs]

Wasim,

What I have used for years with great results is Zaino Z9 Leather Soft Spray Cleaner, and a small tampico bristle (brown bristle) brush to do the initial cleaning.
This alone usually gets everything out and leaves the seat coating nice and softer, ready for a conditioner if needed..

You probably don`t have that brush, so perhaps an old toothbrush would be just the right size to get into those creases and get the blue jean stains out...
You can also use a cotton wash cloth or something like that to clean all the rest of the seat in absence of the right sized leather cleaning brush..

Just be careful that you don`t scrub too hard and disturb the coating on the leather, ok ?? Experiment what amount of pressure and scrubbing or brushing works best.. There is no magic formula for this - every car has different leather and the leather has been treated differently by the user of the car...

The creases are NOT going to go away, ok ? They got there from years of the leather being stretched back and forth as it was sat on, were perhaps never cleaned or conditioned, which drys out the leather and makes it less flexible, and sometimes dirt got in those places and rubbed into the leather and wore the coating down or sometimes completely off..

All you can do is get the leather all clean of existing dirt, and condition it so it looks and feels better and has a little protection on it that will wear away with use, quickly..

This Z9 is a spray liquid, not any solids, just a liquid... You spray it on, let it set for a minute, then scrub gently all over, and wipe it all off with a clean white towel.
Look at the towel and see what color came off.. It should reflect the color of all the gunk that was on that part of the seat...

Make sure - you need to do this in good light, like the sunlight outside, so you can see really good..
When you wipe up the Leather Cleaner the first time, make darn sure you are not seeing the color of the leather seats coming off - this is why I always, always, only use a clean, white cotton towel...

You can repeat this process again on heavily soiled areas, or areas that still have something that is not coming up..

If this does not work, I will try my Meguiars APC+ and repeat the process - the APC+ is stronger than the Z9 but not too strong at 10:1 to damage anything...

I then put a conditioner on the the leather and I only have perhaps 3 different ones I use and that`s it...

Zaino also makes a conditioner, it`s Zaino Z10, and it compliments their Z9 cleaner very well, and leaves a slight Leather smell that dissipates in a few days.. It leaves the seats nice and smooth, and softer than they were before the treatment..

Optimum also makes a really good easy to use leather cleaner/conditioner - Optimum Leather Protectant- probably sold here at the Autopia Store...

There are dozens of leather cleaners and conditioners out there, some are more complicated and time consuming, some are wipe and go, so I have chosen to use proven, really good products that have never let me down in 20+ years...

To clean out the perforations, if they dont clean up with the process above, you can find a round toothpick and cut off the skinny pointy part enough to hopefully get the size just a little smaller than the holes and go push them out and if big chunks come out and fall through, see if you can vacuum them all out or as much as possible if you can even see them at all..
Whatever you end up doing, those holes have something that has dried hard in them, so you need to figure out how to get that little dried, hard particle out and it will be fine...

All Lexus seats look like that if they have been used and never cleaned for years/decades...
Ok, hope this helps...
Dan F

[chromecarz00]

Dan, that was an amazing explanation, thank you for taking the time to type that out. I`m going to look into a lot of the products you`ve mentioned and work on them! Thank you