I would highly recommend a manufacturers products that I have used successfully for many years on leather auto interiors as well as analine dyed leather products such as wallets, shoes etc with incredible success.
Remember that you are doing two things when you "treat leather: First you are cleaning it, secondly you are conditioning and protecting it. You are NOT sealing leather as leather contains in it's finished state; these natural oils allow the leather to breath and flex under stress or seating.
DO NOT use a silicone based product to seal the leather or you will absolutely crack and spider web the finished grain on your leather interior.
The product that I would highly recommend is a two stage product made by a company called: ZYMOL.
www.zymol.com I would use the Zymol leather cleaner to "clean" the leather and finally the Zymol leather Conditioner to "feed and protect the grain finish" and then buff it to a "matte finish" with a clean white terry cloth.
The 2 Zymol products contain all natural glycerins and oils and absolutely no petroleum distillate products or silicones. Petroleum or silicone based leather cleaning products will clean your leather, but you run the risk of removing the analine dye finish (color) and ultimately stripping the natural oils found in the leather which will ultimately causing it to prematurely crack and spider-web in the areas where the leather contours along the seat bolsters.
Zymol is used by high end leather manufacturers such as Connelly as well as OEMS such as BMW, Mercedes, Jaguar and on just about any concourse vehicle ever shown at Pebble Beach.
Sometimes you can find these two Zymol products at auto supply stores, ebay or directly from Zymol.
I have lots of experience with leather care and you will not go wrong with these two products. The key is to "stay on top" of the leather interior and clean and condition it on a regular basis as a preventive measure. You can't expect these Zymol products to remove road tar, nor are they designed for that.
If you have a situation where you have very heavy soiling, sometimes you may have to result to using a "solvent based product" that contains petroleum distillates to remove very heavy soiling, but be sure to test with a white cloth in an inconspicious area to make sure that you do not encounter any dye transfer or color loss of your leather interior. But remember that solvents remove the natural oils and glycerins found in the hides that give the leather its suppleness and finish.
Then you would follow up with the Zymol products to restore the leather by cleaning and conditioning (feeding it).
Good luck - Pete Raimondi
[email protected]***********************
but it works wonders.
