Virtually all car leathers used today are finished with a clear protective coating that is applied for protection and durability of the leather. This means when you apply your favorite secret sauce you are actually cleaning, treating, or conditioning a clear protective layer, not the leather. This clear layer is made up of different types of resins, polymers, or synthetics. You are not dealing with the actual leather, but the clear protective layer. A mild household cleaner is all that's needed to clean the clear protective coating! Anything more, and that favorite secret sauce you like will actually begin to deteriorate your leather's clear protective coating. Example, I've read here or somewhere on the internet someone really liked a certain leather cleaner that was able to remove the crud in the cracks of the leather. Great… not really, the protective coating is gone! And even though the cracks are now super clean, the color in the leather is now being removed!

Using mild cleaners to protect the clear coat will prolong the degradation of the all-important clear coat, but you are still doomed. Getting in and out of the vehicle, heat and cold cycles and just age will remove the clear coat. Once it's gone, game over. You are wasting your time and money on that expensive secret sauce you like and wearing away the color. But if it makes you happy…

Oh no, could this be true? The internet can be a wonderful source of information as long as you have your crap filter on! Read for yourself, I recommend information from sites that are not trying to sell you something first.

What to do? You need to replace the clear protective coating! Not supplement it, not a short time coating, but a clear layer of material similar to what was used when the leather was made. Remember the purpose of the clear coating is to protect and provide durability; you should never get down to the color. And even doing this, obviously the clear coating will not last forever, that's why you need to replace it now. But long term, it will last longer and protect the important leather / color underneath.

Thank you Merlin for the CQuartz video! I watch all 7-1/2 minutes. The part where they have protected vs unprotected leather and mark it up and even put super glue on the leather was impressive. I've actually seen this demo used with another product. Now please don't take this wrong, I'm sure the product does what is shown. But I could do the same thing coating half a piece of leather with 30 weight motor oil. What made me suspect of this product, other than the price, is all the materials they claim it can be used on, including wood?

A few posts up "cayman150" said "My jeans are leaving a little blue dye on the light tan leather in my 2014 Explorer." In my quest for information I found this is a common problem, no not the wearing jeans but the transfer of blue dye from the jeans to light colored leather. The website showed what the leather looked like magnified when the clear protective coating is gone, the jeans were creating micro scratches in the surface which contained the blue dye from the jeans. Guess what; game over… you do not have any clear protective coating left! But to be sure you need to find out exactly want kind of leather was used in your Explorer. Even though few vehicles don't have this clear protective coating, the Ford King Ranch leather, even though it uses Aniline leather, doesn't have a protective coating on the surface.

Sorry about the long post, the seats in our special trucks are old and no easy way that I know of just to replace the cover. If new covers were available for the 2003 black / silver I would care less about this topic. Just use the cheap stuff at the auto store and call it good.

I found out there is a company near me - superiorrestoration.com that's looks top notch. I may take the truck to them; hope they have the fancy machine that makes perfect color matches.

As always, I really appreciate your comments, tell me where I'm wrong and good ideas to prolong the aging seat process. Got to go and take my BP meds, wash it down with a beer. Hope the heart lasts longer than the seats -)

BTW - I'm not going to put Pig Spit on the leather, what a waste of Pig Spit.