# Leather Cleaning with Autoglym [any good ??]



## Aarkonite (Apr 23, 2012)

Last year when i first got my motor i gave the leather a clean with Autoglym Leather cleaner, at the time i was not impressed as the passenger seat did not look that clean at all and was a bit miffed at all the time i had spent to get what i thought was a poor result.

Around the forums you can get very confused about Leather, what to use and what kind of Leather you have and dozens of people giving different advice.

From what i can gather most modern leather is protected with a coating, so in effect its not the actuall leather but the coating you are cleaning.

Just being an ordinary Joe who gets his hands dirty for a living i was not wanting to spend handfulls of cash to buy the latest tech produt when i had already shelled out a few quid for the Autoglym and surely Autoglym could not be as rubbish at cleaning leather as first appeared, so i decided to have another bash at it before i finally give up and try another product.

So here follows the prosses i used and the results i got along with a few pics.

Car is a daily driver and rarely does it carry a passenger, the Leather is pale blue and covers almost 90% of the cars interior, the leather is high end of the very best quality and the interior in general is above average condition.The leather is what you would describe as mildly dirty and visibly so.The finish i want is to be clean and natural looking and definately not dayglo derek shiny when i am done.

First hoover inside of car and seats just to remove any dust loose grime.

Second doing one leather panel / small section at a time i wipe Autoglym cleaner over the complete panel to be cleaned and then using a brand new and unused soft bristle paintbrush gently agitate the leather panel being cleaned to gently motivate the dirt to loosen. leaving for a couple of minutes to work its magic, another gentle agitation then wipe of product with a clean dry cloth.
The cloth i used was an old pair of white boxers with all buttons etc cut off, so i could see the level of dirt being removed.

this pic is the dashboard after gentle agitation with a brush.










i was carefull not to allow product to dry in the sun, and product was agitated with the brush NOT SCRUBBED.

each panel after the initial clean with the brush was wiped down with a clean cloth and then given a quick wipe down with fresh product on a clean cloth and then wiped off and buffed up with a fresh clean cloth.

There is no point cleaning something then going over it again with dirty cloths.

Using this process i worked my way around the interior, taking care not to get leather cleaner on any cloth trim and other plastic interior bits.

RESULT 

I am very impressed by Autoglym now, i still have to go over with Autoglym Leather Balm to protect the finish, but the standard of the clean is good.

My first attempt last year i made some errors, thinking it was a quick wipe on rub and buff of item. What i did not do was take sufficient time and put in enough effort to get the finish i wanted.Nor did i agitate the leather in any way with a brush.

i have also attached a couple of pics to show the before and after on the passenger seat, the 2 leather swatch pics show the before and after and its easier to see the difference than in the main seat pic.










the front centre section of the seat has been cleaned only and you can see the difference compared to the near side part of the seat face.

below the top is before and the bottom pic is the after.



















You can quite visibly see the level of clean in the bottom pic.

The end result is a leather interior that now looks so much fresher and cleaner, there are no lingering smells from the product and the feel of the leather is good, smooth and nice non greassy feel to it.

There are a few bits, mostly on trim corners on the central console that do still have a very faint trace of dirt but overall i would rate Autoglym Leather cleaner pretty highly at removing mild / medium levels of dirt.
As a regular cleaner i will continue to use this for general cleaning of the leather.

to summarise

DONT GIVE YOUR LEATHER A BATH IN THE CLEANING FLUID YOU ARE USING,

instead use small ammounts to work into the leather panel at a time, follow the manufacturers reccomendation for use as to how long to leave etc etc.

Take your time and use a bit elbow grease.

Use clean cloths and brushes.

Go over panels again when the dirt is a bit hard to shift.

BE GENTLE BUT FIRM WITH YOUR AGITATION AND USE A SOFT BRUSH.

After cleaning use a balm conditioner to protect the finish.

If you are not prepared to do the effort part of the cleaning you wont get a good result.

so put your geeky cleaning head on, spend a bit time and effort and you will get a result.

i hope this is helpfull

Aaron


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## lisaclio (Sep 6, 2008)

I've got some autoglym leather cleaner and i didn't feel it cleaned. i ended up buying zymol and that gave some results. i think i'll give autoglym another go. i have autoglym leather conditioner but i didn't want to use it after i cleaned them as i didn't want it to end up shiny.


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## Aarkonite (Apr 23, 2012)

the conditioner on the seats was fine, did have a light matt sheen, nothing to scary tho. My first attempt with autoglym was not good, i used it tooooooo sparingly, so i think i did not use enough product, and did not put enough effort in.

i think if the seats were very dirty and ingrained the autoglym would not do well, so ultimately i will end up trying other cleaners over time just to find out which one takes away the last tiny bits here and there the autoglym cant seem to remove.


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## audigex (Apr 2, 2012)

From what I'm reading, then, would people say that it's pretty much ideal for use on fairly new, not heavily soiled seats? ie it's not going to clean a lot of dirt, but for fairly regular application to keep on top of the situation?


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