Wrinkles / Loose leather on Mercedes SLK seat(s)

[Zypher]

A question for those that see a lot of cars.

This seems to be inherent in the SLK line, almost every car you see has these "wrinkles" in the seat bottoms.

I believe part of the cause is very thin padding which compresses over time, leaving the leather "less tight" than when new.

On the MB forums guys suggest everything under the sun.

Most common suggestion is to heat the leather with a heat gun to the point of combustion, then using an ice cold towel to "massage out" the wrinkles. This, to me, does NOT sound like a good way to treat leather. Another popular method is a steaming hot towel placed on the seat and leave it until it cools completely (like overnight)

I keep them clean and conditioned. I do have a small home steamer unit. I use it to clean them before conditioning. It doesn't seem to do much for the wrinkles however.

They are in great shape except for the wrinkles. 120k miles.

Picture of drivers seat with red outline (the dent in the front part was my knee to take pic of passenger side) and passenger side shows the difference.

I searched the forums but didn't find much related to this type of issue. A child car seat making indentions was about as close as I could find.

What say y'all with experience....?

6129261293

[Zypher]

Well with no responses here and the wrinkles driving me crazy now that I have the exterior looking so good I figured I would go for it.

Todays Harbor Freight ad had a cheap heat gun on sale for 9.00 so I took that as a sign to proceed.

Lots of talk on car forums (both pro & con) about how effective this technique is on removing the wrinkles.

I really took my time. About 1 to 1.5 hours to do drivers seat.

It definitely made a difference. Will it last? Have to find out.

The process was:
(1)Cleaned seat bottom area with very diluted (no ammonia) Windex.
(2)Dried thoroughly.
(3)Used HIGH (1100 degree) setting on heat gun.
(4)Constantly moving gun/nozzle about 2 inches from leather.
(5)Heated for about 1 - 2 minutes. Doing 1 section at a time. Not entire seat bottom.
(6)With free hand got MF towel out of ice water, squeezed out water while still heating the area.
(7)Immediately removed heat gun and applied ice cold towel and began to rub the wrinkled area, front to back.
(8)Dried area with another towel and re-did the ice water microfiber towel until section was no longer warm.
(9)Repeated this about 8 times, alternating between the 2 sections.

Going to let it set for a day or so before I condition the leather. Perhaps not sitting on it and allowing it to "cure" might help.

Don't think I need to label Before/After, but I did....

6131961320

[DogRescuer]

I'm glad it worked for you, I don't have to much experience with leather but I would think that you have to be careful not to overheat to the point of melting the dye?

[MattPersman]

Well with no responses here and the wrinkles driving me crazy now that I have the exterior looking so good I figured I would go for it.

Todays Harbor Freight ad had a cheap heat gun on sale for 9.00 so I took that as a sign to proceed.

Lots of talk on car forums (both pro & con) about how effective this technique is on removing the wrinkles.

I really took my time. About 1 to 1.5 hours to do drivers seat.

It definitely made a difference. Will it last? Have to find out.

The process was:
(1)Cleaned seat bottom area with very diluted (no ammonia) Windex.
(2)Dried thoroughly.
(3)Used HIGH (1100 degree) setting on heat gun.
(4)Constantly moving gun/nozzle about 2 inches from leather.
(5)Heated for about 1 - 2 minutes. Doing 1 section at a time. Not entire seat bottom.
(6)With free hand got MF towel out of ice water, squeezed out water while still heating the area.
(7)Immediately removed heat gun and applied ice cold towel and began to rub the wrinkled area, front to back.
(8)Dried area with another towel and re-did the ice water microfiber towel until section was no longer warm.
(9)Repeated this about 8 times, alternating between the 2 sections.

Going to let it set for a day or so before I condition the leather. Perhaps not sitting on it and allowing it to "cure" might help.

Don't think I need to label Before/After, but I did....

6131961320

Came out great thanks for sharing it


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[LEDetailing]

Wow, nice work. That looks like a totally new seat compared to the before shot.

That is definitely a technique that I’d never heard of.