How To Properly Clean And Maintain Leather Car Seats
Although leather car seats seem indestructible at first glance, not cleaning them properly (or often enough) can lead to wear and tear, followed by expensive repairs.
Without proper care, your leather car seats may end like this:
or this…
Although the car care industry would like to make you believe that you need — and sell you — 5 different products to take care of your leather car seats, the reality is that simply cleaning them often (with the right product) will always suffice.
The key is to never allow them to get so dirty that they need extensive cleaning.
And that’s because is not the cleaning part that ruins the seats — it’s the embedded dirt on the seat that acts as an abrasive every time you sit in your car.
Now, if you drive a recent model car — as in, produced in the last 20 years or so — your car seats are not made up of bare leather.
Instead, the seat is covered with a very thin film of vinyl (or plastic), designed to protect the leather surface underneath.
This film is as thin as the wrapping on a pack of playing cards (or a cigarette pack).
Which makes things a lot simpler, doesn’t it?
Now all you need to clean you leather car seats is one product. And it doesn’t have to be specific for leather, because you’re not actually cleaning the leather, but the coating on top of it.
And so, this product can be anything from a dedicated cleaner (which also says “vinyl” on the label, if you notice)
…to an all-purpose cleaner (although non-caustic and plant-based is better in the long run):
You need one more thing: a microfiber towel (or two).
Like this…
Now, on to the actual cleaning.
Take your microfiber towel, and fold it into fourths — just like in the picture above.
Spray the cleaner onto the towel — NOT on the seat directly — and begin wiping the seat, one section at a time.
Be firm, but not excessive. (If the seats have not been cleaned in a long time, you’ll need to make multiple passes to see a difference.)
Use a dry towel to mop up the remaining moisture.
Repeat a couple of times for each section of the seats.
With my method, you should be done in about half an hour.
Now, the key is to do this often. Leather — especially tan leather — gets dirty easily, even more so if you use your car every day.
Take a look at the picture below — this is the front armrest in a car I see, and clean, once a month. Just for fun, I did a deep cleaning on half of it, to show the difference.
Can you spot the difference? (I’ll help you — the dark, shiny side is the dirty one).
And remember, I clean this car thoroughly once a month.
Doing this cleaning regimen about once a month ensures your leather car seats look good for years to come.