Oh The Dirt...my eyes, my eyes !

[Cell]

I've just recently bought a 01 CLK W208. Over all it's in very good condition. It's been an old dears car for the last seven years and has been fairly well looked after.
So I've been going through things just bringing the car to a better finish but the one thing that getting stubborn is the leather seats. As you can see from the photos that's light dirt living in the natural grain of the leather, and of course the driver seat if the worse one of the two. I think the old girl liked rolling round in the mud on the weekends.

I've manage to get the seats fairly clean but just need some advise on getting the last of this dirt out. The cars only done 68k so I was expecting to get these seats pretty much back to new as there's very little in the way of wear, just some slight stitch furriness.
As you can see there's also grain dirt in the door leather. What products would you recommend to get these crap out

 

[kam05]

Try this:

Gliptone liquid leather Cleaner & Conditioner Air fresh | eBay UK

 

[Dieselman]

Regular soap and a nail brush will get that off.

 

[Cabe]

?

 

[sportyreptile]

Gliptone is great stuff, used it on the Range Rover after a weekends offroading....mud everywhere!!!
It smells great too like antique leather but wear rubber gloves if you use it or you smell like antique leather for days

 

[reflexboy]

Agreed-A nail brush will be perfect as it gets in all the grain that a cloth is unable to do.

 

[Cell]

@Cabe Thanks I'll use that on the wifes car

I'll try some Gliptone thanks for the replies.

 

[tpwuk]

Yup, a nail brush will do the trick. Don't be afraid to scrub!

 

[Cell]

oh I'll scrub Bought a kit with pads, cloth, brush in it Starting the paint work tomorrow so will sort the leather our next week at some point

tpwuk Just had a quick look at your photos of your 430. Mine is the same colour and in a similar condition. If I can get the seats looking nice and clean as yours I'l be a happy puppy. One other question. The damn rubbery, now like blue-tac steering wheel buttons. Is it best to swap them out OR to scrape the rubber coating off ?

 

[stwat]

but wear rubber gloves if you use it or you smell like antique leather for days

To end up smelling like David Dickinson for any amount of time is a horrendous thought

 

[tpwuk]

^Well regarding the steering wheel, I actually cleaned mine up with nail varnish remover....HOWEVER.....another member on here tried the same approach and ended up completely ruining the buttons! So I advise just scraping the coating off with your finger nail.....they'll come up looking mint.

 

[Cell]

OK Cheers fella, will get the nail file out and start scratching

 

[Lockking]

oh I'll scrub Bought a kit with pads, cloth, brush in it Starting the paint work tomorrow so will sort the leather our next week at some point

tpwuk Just had a quick look at your photos of your 430. Mine is the same colour and in a similar condition. If I can get the seats looking nice and clean as yours I'l be a happy puppy. One other question. The damn rubbery, now like blue-tac steering wheel buttons. Is it best to swap them out OR to scrape the rubber coating off ?

Scrape the coating off with your nails. Little job bit at a time while your sitting in traffic.

 

[Lockking]

Sorry tpwuk should have read all the replies