Lexus Prep Before Selling As Cpo

[LexKid630]

A few weeks ago while Lexus was fixing a squeak in my rx300, i decided to walk around the CPO lot for a while. One of the rx300's there was in terrible shape... The leather was very shiny and there was a lot of dirt in the creases on the left thigh support (as what you would expect for a 6 year old vehicle).

Today when they were fixing the tail light problem i was having, i decided to go look at this same rx300 again. I couldn't believe it when i looked inside! It looked new! The brown in the creases was totally gone, and the shiny-ness was too! I could still see the creases but they were tan, just like the rest of the color. The seats literally looked better than mine do! And it's 3 years and 20,000 miles older!

I've tried using the woolite sol'n to clean my leather, and i've tried all different kinds of conditioners. They all leave the leather shiny after a few days. I've used the Lexol conditioner, Poorboys plastic/vinyl/leather interior conditioner, Black Magic conditioner, and Meguiar's cleaner & conditioner. All of them leave a shiny finish.

So what does Lexus use to get rid of the shiny surface? They made this leather to look PERFECTLY flat, just like new leather! Apparently a few weeks ago they didn't clean it yet....Do they "do" something special that i'm not aware of? I would really like to get my leather to look perfectly "flat" in color.

Thanks!

[SW03ES]

I'd ask them...

[cubby]

I'd ask them...

Did you have a chance to find out what kind of product was used there?

[Rx330driver]

yes i recently had my car detailed at the dealership to someones dismay on this site...but i found out an independant company comes in to do the job. The package contained a leather treatment, and when i got it back, i couldnt see a difference in the leather, before and after (black and fairly good condition). THe point is that it was not greasy and did not even look like it was cleaned...dont know if thats a bad thing. But yeah, they must share some sort of dealership secret.

[LexKid630]

Well i bought some of the Lexus leather conditioner today to see if THAT was the secret. And well, it isn't LOL

Besides the fact that it's $20 for an 8 OZ bottle, and has the smell of coconut (terrible odor), it's nothing special. It made the leather really shiny! After i buffed it a little, it still had some sort of shiny film over the leather... I'm going to wait a few more days to see if the shine goes away; but i doubt it!

I figured they had someone else do their leather; no way they use this crap!

[SW03ES]

THe point is that it was not greasy and did not even look like it was cleaned...dont know if thats a bad thing. But yeah, they must share some sort of dealership secret.

They probably didn't do anything.

The leather would feel softer had it been cleaned and conditioned.

Reason 142 not to have your car detailed at the dealer. Had you contacted a professional directly it would have been cheaper and everything would have been done properly.

As for Lexus leather cleaner, its just repackaged and marked up consumer Zymol.

[Rx330driver]

I was cleaning my car yesterday, and i used a leather cleaner that comes in a can and sprays out foam that looks like that hair moose. After applying it and "cleaning" i did notice it removed a fair amount of black stuff, hopefully not the color from my leather, anyways, it did look "wet" for the rest of my cleaning time. the next morning (mind you i did it at night) it looked like it hadnt been cleaned at all, no greasy stuff, no sign of wetness. great stuff, ill see if i can mark down the name later

[leavinnj]

I bought my LS400 from the dealer and when I first saw it the grey seats had some scuff marks on the drivers seat and some wear marks also. When I went back to pick it up, they had detailed it and now the seats were better than new. I have had the car 2 years now and it still looks great. THey dad resprayed the seats and you could not tell that it was done except that they looked new. They still do to this day even with 40K additional miles on it.