I just tried out leatherique at last on my 97 GTI VR6 after having my order of leatherique sitting in my closet for the past 3 weeks. I`ve been waiting for the ideal time where I didn`t have to use my car for about 5 hours and it was sunny out. In the pacific northwest, it`s pretty tough to predict a sunny day!
My interior was recently converted to black leather transplated out of another GTI that was headed for the junk yard. The leather was in great condition, but was a little stiff. This is a problem that`s plagued all VW leather in this generation of cars. (The 2000+ models have much softer leather). I mainly wanted to apply leatherique to thoroughly clean the seats and to soften then up a bit. The seats were also getting pretty shiny from constant rubbing of my butt on my regular spirited driving sessions :up
I first cleaned the seats with a soapy warm water solution, then used a soft bristle toothbrush to get the stitching clean. Then I vacummed up the dirt out of the crevices. I let the seats dry overnight and then started the next morning on leatherique. I parked the car in the sun and turned on my car`s heat for about 5 mins to get the inside toasty (I started at 10am so it wasn`t that hot yet).
I applied the leatherique onto the seats pretty liberally. I have 32oz of both rejuvanator oil (RO) and prestine clean (PC). I applied the RO by hand and massaged it into the seats well pretty generously. I followed the directions included with my order and made sure I got the seams of my seats as well. I thought I was sloshing this stuff on, but after I was done, I realized I only used about 2oz per seat when the directions say to use 4oz!
I let the car sit in the sun with my windows up for 4.5 hours. I went out for the afternoon and came back ready to attack the seats with the PC. I poured a generous amount of the PC onto a white towel and started massaging that into the seats. The cloth was just turning brown and black!! The dirt was just coming out of nowhere! and to think I just washed them with soap and water thoroughly the night before. Leatherique really was pulling dirt OUT of the leather itself. After applying PC to all the seats, I started back on the driver`s seat. I used a dry towel and buffed the PC out as per the directions. The towels was turning brown as well.. almost made me gag thinking of the fact I`ve been sitting on these for months!
After buffing all teh seats, I started again with another dry towel. More dirt was coming off onto this second towel and by the time I was done this second pass, the seats didn`t feel oily anymore. The seats were slightly tacky.
The first thing I noticed after I stepped back was that the seats were DARK! This is a good thing. The black leather look dark, deep and soft! To touch, the leather was tacky (as expected since that`s what others on autopia have experienced). Leather wasn`t as soft as I expected, but I think I was expecting too much. Most people`s reviews are about applying leatherique to much older seats. But don`t get me wrong, the leather definitely was softer. The cracks in a few spots were much less prominent now and actually barely looked noticeable.
I`m letting the car sit now for a little while longer and I`m going to go over it with another dry towel just in case more PC/RO starts to bubble up or if Missed anything. I`ll then followup with a coat of 303.
Leatherique gets the definite thumbs up from me. The 32oz RO and 32oz PC came to $59.50 shipped, and I used about 1/5 of the bottles this round. I advise buying in this quantity because you`ll want to do this treatment at least once a year, if not twice.
Conclusion: don`t bother with other leather products and waste your time. Every other leather conditioner/cleaner has good and bad reviews. I`ve yet to read a bad review about leatherique. Chalk this review up as another positive review about leatherique!
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