So about two weeks ago I was changing the brakes on my car and a caliper got messed up in the process. Car is under warranty so I took it to Ford to get fixed. Well, it took 2-3 days for me to get my car back and when I got it back.....I realized that the bottle of brake fluid I left on the passenger seat had a crappy lid on it and slowly leaked onto my passenger seat. I immediately dried it up but it left a 'darker' stain on the leather about the size of a softball. I did some research and found that the best remedy was to scrub corn starch into the area and it'll dry/bring to the surface the oil to which you can dry up and repeat until it's all gone....well I can't really tell of this is working or not. I'm writing here to see if anyone else has had a similar situation and if a detail/dealership can repair the damage or if I'm stuck with a ****ed up seat for good?
Brake fluid on leather seats....can it be 'repaired'?
- Thread starter Dennis1417
- Start date
Man that sucks. Need to upload photo to see how bad it is. Besides using corn starch what else have you done to try to clean it up?
I have used standard leather cleaner and conditioner on it which appears to do nothing but put a glaze of shine on top of it. I watched some leather cleaning videos and several showed people using bathroom cleaner (Scrubbing Bubbles) to 'strip' the seat of all oil/dirt, and then you're supposed to condition it after. Well I did this and all it seemed to do was eat the black finish off my seats. I know this because my towels were turning black. :shrug: Needless to say I won't be doing that anymore.
Here's a picture of the damage. When I remove the corn starch from the seat, it looks like a darker black than the seat (oily, as if it is indeed drawing the oil to the surface). When I take a towel to it and dry it up, it looks like this.
Here's a picture of the damage. When I remove the corn starch from the seat, it looks like a darker black than the seat (oily, as if it is indeed drawing the oil to the surface). When I take a towel to it and dry it up, it looks like this.
Man that looks bad. I just did some quick internet searching and a lot of people recommend using baking soda to "neutralize it". I did read one guy took the leather off and scrubbed the front and back with a mix of dawn dish soap and water. He reported that it got better. I would pull the leather off and scrub with dawn and then, reclean with leather cleaner and hit it with some conditioner. If it looks better reinstall leather and hope it don't resurface. I would bet your seat foam has soaked up some of that fluid too. Here in Centex we have an upholstery shop that can replace sections of bad leather for around 125-200 depending on how big the section is. If all else fails just replace the bad leather or try to find a used seat to replace it. Hopefully one of the detail experts will chime in with an easier fix.
did you leave the brake fluid bottle there or the dealer?
contact autonation ford parts on here and see how much a seat bottom cover is
contact autonation ford parts on here and see how much a seat bottom cover is
Another option is taking it to an upholstery shop and let them try and dye it back to normal. Might save you alot of bucks there.
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