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!
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!