[alexb]

Hi Everybody,

I think that I may have taken the leather dye out of my passenger seat! Last week, I took my 2006 330xi in for some service at my indy mechanic. Afterwards, the interior of my car got pretty dirty, with hand-prints and the like on both my seats and my interior plastics. He's a wonderful mechanic and a very nice man, but he always gets my car dirty. You'd think maybe I would learn my lesson and wrap the car in plastic, right?



A week or two before taking my car in for service, I performed the full Leatherique Rejuvinator and Prestine Clean treatment. I've done this at least once a year for a few years, following the excellent DIY from Detailed Image. Although, I frequently do not have the full 24-hours of waiting time that they recommend to let the Rejuvinator sit. I put it on in the morning, let it bake, take it off in the evening.

When I got the car back, I performed the Rejuvinator treatment again on the front two seats. Everything came beautifully clean, except for this spot on my passenger seat. So, I applied Rejuvinator again, to that spot, and this time let it bake until the next day. When I went to take off the Rejuvinator with Prestine Clean, I used the (very stiff bristled) DI Leather Brush on that stubborn spot. But, long story short: I'm pretty sure I went after the spot too heavily. After using the brush, I went onto using a microfiber towel and Prestine Clean. It was at that point, my towel started turning beige! Same color as my seats! Coincidence, I think not! Ha ha. Oh boy. At that point, I cut my losses and stopped work.


Fig. 1: Passenger Seat
Here's how it looks now, but it looks worse in the photo than it does in real life.





So! Fellow forum members! Have I wrecked my seats? I understand leather can be re-dyed, and I have booked an appointment to have it looked at by a local guy who does these things.

My real question is if I could have really fouled things up by doing Leatherique Rejuvinator so many times in a row. Should I really be leaving the stuff on for 24 hours? Should I be using it less often? Was it that brush? I don't want to wreck anything else! And, as mdintx posted the other day, clearly I need to buy that Swissvax Brush. Perhaps, I should be using Zymol, too.

What do you all think?

Thanks,

Alex

PS - Definitely not pissed at Detailed Image or anything; those guys are great.

[dsb335]

My guess is that the surface is a bit damaged from the going at it with the brush to aggressively. I doubt it's due to the Leatherique product or it would be more widespread. I think you can keep using the Leatherique products but work with softer brushes after it's repaired.

[Detailed Image]

Sorry to hear about your issue Alex! That surely looks like you simply went too aggressively at a spot repair. I've had that happen before using only a microfiber towel and some Optimum NoRinse, so I doubt either the Leatherique or the brush played a (major) role here.

Let us know what the local guy says and how you go about fixing it. Going forward, I'd say instead of using a stiff brush, or a brush at all, simply give it a light brushing with a softer bristle brush (I really like DI Horse's Hair brush) or even just a microfiber towel. You can surely "overclean" the leather and this is normally the result.

Hope you get it fixed soon!

Ivan @ DI