Its an interesting fact that since the early 1980's the leather seating in auto interiors has not been dyed but painted with a flexible lacquer. This is true of almost every manufacturer...even Ferrari and Maserati did it, I doubt rolls royce or bentley did it but they might be the only ones. By spraying on an opaque lacquer it evened out the grain irregularities so that lesser grades of leather could be used. Its a nice looking final product as well. The problem is that 20 or more years down the line that lacquer starts to get a bit stiff and cracks. You know the feeling of sitting in 80's leather seats. That sensation of "if I press to hard it will crack." With a bit of scouring the web I came up with an inexpensive and workable solution. Sure the leatherique method sounds wonderful but the kit would cost more than I have into these seats.I picked up the new seats for the caddy. Some super sexy powered Porsche sport seats.  I LOVE them with almost every cell in my body. The are a light tan leather and have that all too familiar stiff and crinkley feel of older leather. Here is the passenger seat. Pretty aint it.
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The outer bottom bolster on this seat is the worst of it. some cracks and a bit of smudge that wont come off with any cleaner.
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The whole seat is stiff and cardboardish as well. A sensation that betrays their good looks. I started by removing the lacquer.....with what you ask? Well lets try the obvious. Lacquer thinner. I took a terry cloth and poured the thinner onto it and started rubbing. Lo and behold it came right off. You can see the pigment on the towel.
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This wasnt easy work. I removed the paint from the entirety of both seats and it took a good 4 hours of scrubbing to do it.You are also removing the pigment from the seats as well so they will need to be redyed later. The leather felt MUCH better now. It was alot softer and you didnt fear poking your finger through it. It looked much nicer as well. Another bonus is that most of the cracking that was visible was just the lacquer and not the leather beneath.
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Now here comes the really weird part. Get a pail of water and some 500 grit sandpaper and wetsand the seats. Yep just go nuts on em. Get every little surface, nook and cranny. If there are still cracks, go over them until they start to fade away. Dont go too far you are not trying to make suede here but get that 20 year old surface off of them. Take a damp towell and wipe them down then dry them off. The first thing you will notice is that they feel great!

THe next step I took was to set them in the sun and let them get good and warm. Then I slathered them in Zymol leather conditioner and let it soak in. Really work it in with your hands and you will feel the leather start to get more plieable. Let them continue to sit in the sun and stay warm for a while then wipe off the excess.The end result? Well I obviously need to redye them. But they feel amazing. They went from painted crispy cardboard to almost glove soft. Sadly the backs and sides of them are vinyl and not leather so I cannot use a water based dye and need to use a spray on product like SEM. Thats fine though. I will update after I dye them to the appropriate buckskin color. When they are a uniform color they will look and feel....if not new maybe 3 years old. Thats not bad for a 25 year old pair of seats.

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