Faux leather care, cleaning and maintaining

[Jimbo.]

Many moons ago I had a car with real leather seats, and glorious they were too. Looking after them, whilst a bit of effort, was simple enough: clean them regularly and slather some conditioner on them every now and then. And it worked well.

My new car has faux leather, so my question is: how the hell do I look after it?! Having spent a bit of time on Google, I’m even more confused now than when I started! Cleaner? Conditioner? Protectors? Ceramics? 3-in-1s? Vinyl cleaner? It’s a right ol’ mess. I’m not averse to a little elbow grease and don’t mind separate products if needed. But which ones, if any?

Again, many thanks for your help.

[QJumper]

As I understand it, even real leather seats are coated in some kind of plastic clear coat, so cleaning is much the same. Personally I use a diluted mix of rinseless wash and water to clean, but I guess any mild soap and water solution would do, and then treat/protect with 303 protectant, which is pretty much the same as I do for all plastics and trim.

If the seats need any treatment beyond that, such as creases/cracks, then I use the leather colourant from Furniture Clinic.

[Summit_Detailing]

A cleaner, like Gtechniq tri-clean or other all purpose cleaner and a protector like Gtechniq L1 or Gyeon q2 leather is all you need.

Modern leather does not need conditioning, as above poster has said modern leather is coated so a conditioner just sits on the surface attracting dirt so is actually counterproductive and accelerates dirt build up.

Cheers,

Chris

[vikingaero]

I just use leather cleaner/conditioner on pleather.