Zup.

My '96 Maxima's leather is starting to get messed up on my driver's seat (2 small tears and some wear down where my spine touches). The copilot's seat is not yet torn. The back seats, which rarely get used, are as good as new. I hope that, with some good advice from you, I can treat my leather correctly to keep it from tearing all up and wearing out.

I know of only one leather cleaner/treater, the TUrtleWax brand, but I haven't used it religiously enough to say whether it works or not. Which product or method works best to keep the leather from wearing out and tearing?

Thanks

 

what are the percentages supposed to mean in your poll?

and this isn't a 4th gen related thread

 

PS: Don't even mention about using a seat cover. I like to keep my car the way it comes from the factory.

 

It is. 5th generations have new leather which doesn't concern us because theirs will last for a while more. 3rd generations also have a different leather.

If you can't understand the voting options, then you shouldn't vote anyway.

 

Have you tried losing some weight?

But seriously, at some point it's going to wear out whether you like it or not because of age, sun damage, etc. Are your windows tinted? Also not sliding hard into the seat helps. Not easy to do because it's so natural, but I try to remind myself to enter with ease not speed.

I also wipe em' down with Meguiar's leather wipes once a month.

 

That's funny. I only weigh 130 lbs. For a guy my age that is not too funny.
Anyhow....
My windows are a bit tinted. That's a good point, maybe I will put in those barely legal almost black tints.
So in what state is your leather thanks to using Meguiar's?

 

Well, I'm not the best test case for the Meguiar's and it's affects. I bought mine with 34.6k on it last January and it now has 42k, so not enough time yet. I only weigh 150lbs myself. They're in great shape though, my windows are only tinted maybe 35 I think. But anything that blocks the majority of rays can only help. Plus it's garaged, if I wasn't able to garage it I'd go barely legal on the tint because of excessive exposure. Especially down where you are.

 

Mine are quite worn, but I just bought the car so none of it is due to me. Any tips for at least kind of repairing this until I get new leather covers?

 

Transparent industrial-type tape seems to keep the split from splitting more. It doesn't look great up close but far away can barely see it. I am talking about the type of tape you use to shut boxes up.

 

i tried using some gold class meguires stuff, putty colored liquid in a bottle, i was sure it would work but it didnt seem to really work on my seats...you have to REALLY scrub, and for some reason i just cant scrub into the leather. my friend used it on the door panel of his accord and it worked great with some elbow greese, however i couldnt get it to work and the seats WERE fairly warm (i read it makes a difference). have you checked the "detailing" forum? there might be info in there but i'm so split on the decision of whether to buy new leather or what.
that gd looks like a GOOD deal in the GD section from leatherseats.com. but im also split on waht colors to get and whether i want to swap the rest of my car to black.
i have a slight tear and some black spots (like from an ink pen) in my passenger seat that **** me off but theres not much i can do about it.
i also get really dirty at work so i need to find a way to keep from getting it all over my car.

 

Woah, dude! Lend me some from that wad of money you got!

New leather seats? Holy cow.... How much will you pay for that?

 

in the GD section its like 550 for all new leather seats all customized to your preference ,check it out. i thought it was a good deal..but about 80 percent of my income goes into my car so...

 

I wish i was 16 again

 

i love it. i hope i make enough money to keep the max forever. gotta live large while i can though

 

I don't know what the previous owner did for the 106K miles he had my car for to keep the leather in such good condition because it looks pretty much like new to this day. One thing I do know is that very little sun hit the seats because it's an out of state car from New Jersey I think...I have not done any kind of cleaning/treatment to the seats for the 14K miles I've had the car and they still look good. I have 30% tints in the front and ALWAYS use a windshield sun visor when parking.

 

Lexol Cleaner and Conditioner is good stuff... or saddle soap...

 

I was just trying to point out that there is and entire forum dedicated to detailing. You'll probably have better luck there. In fact, I'm sure the topic has been discussed several times there before.

Detailing Forum

And I still don't understand your percentage scale

good luck with your search

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...tem=8009053330
I bought these. They look great in my car and there real hard to tell they are covers. My seats looked like venompwr2 's. I didn't want seat covers but these looked to good to pass on and there a heck of alot cheaper than $550.

 

Just use some nice leather conditioner and try not to rub up against the seats with anything major in your pockets. Buddy of mine use to keep his keys on his back belt loop and put a huge hole into his seats =/ talk about an expensive mistake!

 

i use Meguiar's rich leather cleaner/conditioner. it cant replenish the leather but it does a damn good job keeping it clean and the leather from getting bad. i dont use the wipes cuz i think the actual cream stuff works a lil better. to put it on i use a 100% cotton terry cloth. i think it works great, hope that helps

-Tyler

 

www.leatherique.com is supposedly the best...i bought it but i only used it once and the seats i have will require a few more treatments.

 

condition with a leather conditioner once a month. I do mine twice a month during extreme hot or cold weather. i too use meguiar's gold class conditioner. smells ok too

 

yup leatherique is hands down the best

 

leatherique is supposedly great (i haven't tried it) but might be overkill if your seats are in decent shape. i use lexol cleaner and conditioner every 3 months or so and have had good results in all of my cars. in my (albeit limited) experience, black seats seem to suffer more damage from the sun. when i bought my max, the black dye was worn out of a few small areas (i think caused by rubbing from a child's carseat). following some advice i'd read online, i just mixed some black shoe polish and a squirt of lexol conditioner on a clean rag and blended that into the worn areas. it worked extremely well; those blemishes are gone! i would say that my seats are now in 80% excellent condition!

 

What you do is about all you can. It's not real leather, it's vinyl. There's about as much leather in each surface as a piece of paper, so that's 2 times 4 seats or 8 times 8 1/2 x 11. It was amazing how for so many years the car business could say "leather" and then jack the price up by $1100 incorporating it into a "leather" package. But now that Hyundais and Kias have leather, we have to realize that it's not leather. Go to Modell's, you can get some shoes for $9.99. It says genuine leather "uppers." Rest is vinyl, just like Maxima seats. If you want to see how much real leather costs, go to edmunds.com and price out a Porsche Carerra.

 

BMW calls their fake leather in their lower class cars "Leatherette"

 

to the guy with the really bad shape seats up there, someone i spoke to pealed off a portion of his seat and went to homedepot and had them color match the leather and got latex paint and touched up the sides and it looks waaaayyyy better. just an idea and cheapo fix.

 

common sense, leather is skin, you gotta moisterize your skin with lotion or something, well you gotta get leather moisterizer "man i cant spell dat damn word" especially when exposed to direct sun light, sun will dry the hell out of your leather. my **** got so dry my brother put his hand on the back passenger head rest, and that **** cracked like a cookie.

 

You married your Maxima?

 

Whaaaaaaa?!?!?!?!

Does anybody actually agree with this? Or is this guy schizophrenic....

 

haha, sure why not.

 

I spoke to fellow in my town that's been in the car upholstery for years and he tells me the only part of the car seat that's got leather in it is the seating surface. The rest is vinyl. And that applies to the Mercedes and all other high end stuff too.

 

not all, but most.

 

www.leatherique.com

All bimmer owners swear by them. Great product.

 

Yaaaah, sure. There is LOTS of plastic in a car.

The dashboards, you name it.

But I want to think the leather seats are not fake.

 

Hello JoeB. I looked at these on Ebay a while back (iggeeseatcovers makes them to order). I almost bought them, but I didn't want to spend the cash and them have them a) not look nearly as good as the picture or b) fall apart at the seams in two months.

It sounds like you like them. Could you send me some pics of these in your car? Especially the rear part of the seat which they don't show you in the pics. Looks like some kind of stretch material... My seats look like crap, but I refuse to spend $600 on new leather. If these look relatively 'clean' that would satisfy me.

 

same here, i would also like to see pics of these seats. Did you have leather previously before you put the covers over it, or did you cover over cloth?

TIA

 

i have some random black "ink splot" as stated earlier on my passenger air bag that actually happened when i was cleaning it which sucks..is there any kind of touchup for that, also? or would i just have to suck it up/get the cover replaced?

 

try having preforated seates... they suck.. cuase it creacks easier.. i wanan get a new drivers seat... so bad...

 

i have a few friends who bought cheapo seat covers, front and back. there ****ty as hell and cheap looking but a alternative in the situation i guess. id never go down that route tho

-Tyler