"PEELING" LEATHER !

[r44raven]

Has anyone experienced this before?

23 years of neglect prior to my ownership of my 500E rendered the front seat cushions somewhat less supple than they should be, so I invested in some Leatherique Rejuvinator. I followed the instructions carefully, and the pic shows the result.

The "darker" part of the leather surface is the part that is "peeling" off, exposing the "lighter" material underneath.

Is the Rejuninator so strong it is removing some kind of leather treatment that may have been applied during original manufacture, or has some PO applied some kind of treatment that is now coming off?

Thanks in advance!

 

[LWB250]

Quite possibly. Leatherique isn't "strong" in the sense that it attacks or strips the leather, rather, it's intended to get into the pores of the leather and soften things up. If there is something on the surface of the hide Leatherique could cause it to lift off I would expect.

I've used it for decades and on many, many different cars and never seen this. If you apply more Leatherique to these areas do they darken and blend with the rest of the surface? Also, did you use Prestine Clean afterwards?

You should reach out to George (owner) and ask him what he thinks.

LRPUSA1962@gmail.com

Dan

 

[r44raven]

Quite possibly. Leatherique isn't "strong" in the sense that it attacks or strips the leather, rather, it's intended to get into the pores of the leather and soften things up. If there is something on the surface of the hide Leatherique could cause it to lift off I would expect.

I've used it for decades and on many, many different cars and never seen this. If you apply more Leatherique to these areas do they darken and blend with the rest of the surface? Also, did you use Prestine Clean afterwards?

You should reach out to George (owner) and ask him what he thinks.

LRPUSA1962@gmail.com

Dan

Thanks for your reply. I haven't tried re-applying a further treatment of Leatherique. I wanted to get some advice first! I did use Prestine Clean afterwards, and it was at that time that, whilst rubbing the leather with a damp cloth, the "surface" started peeling off.

Thanks also for that email address; I'll write to George and send him a pic and see what he thinks.

 

[LWB250]

I've known George for probably 20-25 years, he's a nice guy and truly dedicated to the car world.

I met him when the wife worked for Harley-Davidson and we were at Bike Week (Daytona). Here was this little guy standing in the middle of a bunch of bikers, taking one of their colors (jackets) and giving it a treatment with Leatherique. It was sort of surreal to watch, knowing that if he messed up this guy's colors he would be in a very unpleasant position.

Believe it or not, cars and motorcyclists are his biggest markets.

Dan

 

[alabbasi]

I experienced similar issues with a set of w109 300SEL seats that I bought when living in Atlanta (about 15 years ago). I installed them and then used leatherique and within a few weeks, the leather started peeling apart. I don't know if it was the leatherique or the seats were just in terrible shape but looked good outwardly. In any case, I stopped using leatherique after then as at the time, I did search online for similar issues and saw a couple of reports on forums about it.

I know that people swear up and down by it so I'm not going to suggest that the product is bad. I just had a very bad and disastrous experience that I would prefer not to repeat which is why I discontinued using it.

 

[gsxr]

It's also possible the PO had the seats re-dyed, and you are seeing the dye coming off? Because I'd swear that the OE MB leathers are dyed in such a way that the color is permeated through the entire leather, there isn't a "surface" layer of any kind. Before condemning the product, I'd try a different product on a different area of the seat (not yet treated by Leatherique) and see what happens.

 

[Bogeyman]

It looks to me like some kind of surface sealer was applied.
Detailers today use many different variations of leather treatments/surface protectants.
Your leather underneath looks healthy in the pic, so I would just proceed.

 

[r44raven]

Hi everyone, and thanks for your input.

I've just had a reply from George at Leatherique. He's almost certain the seats have been re-dyed at some time, and this is what's peeling off.

He recommends re-dyeing those parts where the peeling has occured, and I'm going to do this with a leather re-colouring balm (made by a company called "The Furniture Clinic"). I'll post again with the results.

 

[LWB250]

I believe that Mercedes leather was "semi-aniline" leather. This is a process that involved first vat dying the hides, then laying them out on a conveyor belt and spraying them with additional dye to get a consistent color. You can tell if a leather is vat dyed as it will be the same color on both inside (underside) and outside.

Glad George was able to help you out. He's a good guy.

Dan

 

[Sam SL]

To me, re-dyed leather gives off a different smell than the Mercedes factory leather. The suppleness changes too.

 

[r44raven]

Hi Everyone!

Here's an update on my "peeling" leather. First up is a "before" pic, and second is an "after" pic, i.e. after I had used a re-colouring balm on that part of the cushion from which the outer layer of new dye had peeled.



(The white-ishness in the pores is just the leather polishing balm which I used to finalise the job, not yet totally dried).

I think overall I can rate this a success!

 

[r44raven]

I'm revisiting this thread, as my OCD didn't allow me to accept that some previous owner had somehow treated my 500E seats with a glossy finish (which I didn't like anyway), which started to peal off when I attacked the seats with some Leatherique Rejunivator in the hope of bringing back some suppleness to the leather.

At the time (middle of last year), I did overcome the problem by re-dyeing and refinishing the seats in the areas effected - but it always niggled that this wasn't really a "good" option - and also still left me with a gloss finish on the seats.

Extended lockdowns allowed me time to properly address the problem. The advice of Furniture Clinic (no affiliation!) was that if I wanted to re-establish the Matt finish to the seats, I would first have to remove all the substance that the previous owner had applied - otherwise there would be adhesion problems with the new finish.

The only practical way to do the job properly was to completely remove all the seats from the car, and having done so, I used Furniture Clinic's "Leather Prep" to remove the gloss finish. The seats were then re-dyed with 2 coats of black Leather Repair Paint, and refinished with five coats of a Semi-Matt refinisher.

Attached are two pics - one showing the horrible slimey "glupe" which came off the seats - the second the finished article. Interestingly, before the process the two fronts seats did show some significant creasing - but it turned out this was actually in the gloss finish, and when this was removed, the vast majority of the creases disappeared.

It was not a job for the faint hearted! I reckon in total I spent more than 120 hours on the process. But I can now sleep at night!