Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Leather

What are some good products to use on the leather in the Contour? Has any one else's began to split at the seams in the back window? If so, What did you do? I went to a upholstery shop and he said that maybe you could order the whole back seat cover, but it would be expensive. Any suggestions would be helpful

Leather conditioner.

Tanner's Preserves or Lexol are 2 good ones.

Hit them every couple of months. Maybe more in the summer or depending on if the car sits outside all the time...

Whatever you do: DO NOT USE ARMORALL on them or any other product made for vinyl, rubber, plastic, or dashboards. This will cause the leather to shrink and crack.

Only use a leather conditioner.

Also those "leather wipes" are only good for spot cleaning the leather. They do not supply enough real conditioner to be more useful then a cleaning wipe.

Zaino Z-10 (their leather in a bottle stuff) works real good for me. These seats are from 95 and are a little cracked etc, and I suspect the previous owner never thought of treating them, but the Z-10 made them nice and soft, and it smells good too

Due to their poor reputation, I would not use any Armor All products on leather seats. I believe they make a bottled leather cleaner and/or conditioner, plus their "leather wipes." I would use something else.

I followed a leather discussion at edmunds.com for quite a while. Wal-Mart has Tanner's Preserve leather for $3 a bottle on clearance (almost $5 at KMart). Tanner's Preserve is the product recommended by Eagle Ottawa, one of the largest automotive leather manufacturers in the world. This stuff has a pretty good rep, as does Lexol. Another one is Hide Food, available through Jaguar dealers. Pricey and more work to apply because it's a thicker paste, but I bet it works deeper into the leather than the Lexol (sprays on).

I've been considering using plain old mink oil. I've used mink oil with great results on soccer shoes for 15 years. I tried some on our leather furniture at home and it absorbed quite well.

just saw a new meiguars product leather conditioner wipes.. they seem like they work well, don't leave any fibers etc.. got mine at pepboys

For treating your leather long-term, I think you'll need more than these leather wipes. You need to apply something (liquid, paste, etc.) to the leather and actually get it to penetrate the surface to rejuvenate the leather. Just wiping it with these leather wipes might make it look good or help with cleaning up a spill, but it's not a good long-term solution all by itself.

I believe that zaino contains mink oil.

I recommend using zaino as well.

kim, that's interesting. Thanks for mentioning it.

I've been using Tanner's Preserve without any problems in a little over a year. The only thing I can't seem to do is restore the top part of the back seat.
It's dried out,still flexible, but not cracked.
Anyone have any idea's for that?
Mike

I've used the armor all leather stuff before and it doesn't seem to do a very good job. Now it's all about Megiur's Gold Class.