Non-acid wheel cleaner on LEATHER

[MrSelfDestruct]

When we switched to CarBrite`s non-acid wheel cleaner

http://carbrite.com/servlet/net.ebiz...c/EL02&lb=none

(we also have acid stuff for the tough jobs) at one point the guy said that he heard of other detailers using this type of WHEEL cleaner on LEATHER (blue/green non-acid). I was like hmm ok. Never really thought about using it that way, but kept it in the back of my mind.



Today- HORRID DISCUSTING mid 90s Caddy STS the boss sold Melissa to clean. Customer wasn`t paying for the cleanup, but they spend $4000 on other mechanical repairs. Anyways this thing was a WRECK (extremely dirty, missing floormats, busted up interior pieces), so anything to make it look better... really nothing could be done to harm it! LOL



Anyways it had light colored leather interior, which was filthy. She tried using our general purpose cleaners on it, with minimal results. So I thought, hey.. let`s see how the WHEEL cleaner works! Sprayed a section on a seat, gave it a little scrub with a mild brush then wiped... wow! After doing 1 seat the brush was brown from dirt, and the seat looked almost acceptable (remember, this car is TRASHED). Anyways Melissa was impressed so we did this to the whole car. Only drawback was the seats were sticky afterwards, so we just wiped it down a couple times with water.



Car went back to the customer looking better than it did in probably the last 5+ years...



I have no idea what the long term effects are of using this stuff on seats... so I`m not gonna recommend using it on your Infinity or Lexus. And obviously, nobody here has seats in THAT bad of condition (at least I hope not!!). Anyways I just thought I`d share, maybe someone will come across a similar situation.. or if you got some horrible stain or something as a last resort.

[salty]

Seats were sticky because the "clearcoat was disturbed". This might cause residual conflict.



I would try a soft-medium brush and APC after a 15 second soak. If that didn`t work. Then a diluted mild solvent-water mix brush next, 5 second dwell and then wipe. That would be the most extreme i would go without the owners consent.