So in CA we've just gotten our first rain in six months. And with Maxine, these are the first leather seats I've ever owned.

What extra care do we need to take with the leather? The rain on my coat and purse are getting all over the seats and steering wheel.

We wipe down the seats every other week with those leather cleaner/conditioner wipes. Will this still be enough to keep the leather happy?

thanks.

 

The rather eccentric guy at my local shoe repair shop assured me that water is no problem with leather: "What do you think happens to cows when it rains?" This was when he was trying to convince me that I could put leather shoes through the washer and dryer!

 

Well.. the thing with water is that it tends to dry out the leather - the natural oils that keep the leather nice and soft and pliable leave and you're left with brittle leather fibers. Cows can replace those oils pretty easily, but, well.. some manual labor is involved if you want to replace them in your seat leather.

My preferred method of taking care of leather is to first keep it clean - a barely damp coth or sponge does wonders for this . When the leather needs a tad bit of conditioning, I like to use a good old glycerin bar soap or saddle soap (available at your local tack shop, or shoe place if you're not adventurous ). Use a nice CLEAN sponge, get it wet, wring the heck out of it so it's just barely wet, then rub it on the soap. Squeeze some more - get more water out if you can, but it also works the soap into the sponge and starts it lathering. Rub the soap-laden sponge into the leather - don't be afraid to press down a bit - you need this mechanical action to work the lubricants into the leather as well as possible. Too much water is detrimental to what you're wanting to accomplish - it'll just soak into the leather, but you're not conditioning the way that you should. The conditioner wipes are nice on occasion when you don't have time for the real treatment, but I tend to think that they're just a bit too WET to do much real conditioning. Cleaning and conditioning should really be two separate steps. Anyway, rub the soap into the leather well. If you've got some still sitting on the surface, wipe it off with a clean cloth.

If you keep the leather conditioned, then it should survive the rain as you've described just fine. Be careful not to over-condition the leather, as that can make it squishy and too soft - not the best thing for seats.

Just my way of doing things, brought over from taking care of and restoring horse tack over the years.

Hope that helps...

 

Ace Hardware sells "Lexol" cleaner and conditioner. Buy a bottle of each and use it just like rfath described and your seats will last you a very long time.

 

As long as you clean and condition the leather each week (a good habit by the way), it should be fine. Yeah, I've thrown leather shoes in the washer and they come out new, but after 6 washes they call the trash can home. I would suggest using an umbrella- wearing a rain coat and then sitting on your leather seats for the drive home while soaking wet probably isn't the best thing for them. I have the leather too and I'm just going to be careful and avoid getting them wet if possible. I also keep a soft, absorbent cloth under my seat just in case.

I have to say, isn't this RAIN GREAT???!!!??? I am so loving this weather! It's been so long since we've seen REAL rain like this (for more than 2 minutes). It reminds my Emma (my Cooper) of home, on the other side of the pond. We are having so much fun driving in this! This morning, sitting in traffic, I was mesmerized by the rain drops collecting on the sunroof and the reflection of my car in the big white SUV in front of me- those headlights, parking lights, and fog lights glowing back at me like a MINI ghost. And the rear wiper... OH SO FUN! (It's my first.) I hope it rains all weekend!

LET'S MOTOR WET!