How to clean leather seat seams

[flyfishvt]

I was cleaning and conditioning my Dove leather seats on my e36 and noticed the seams on the seat bottom are getting a buildup of dirt. Since dirt is the big enemy I would really like to get them cleaned up.

Can someone give me some ideas of how to get down into the seams to get this out?

I seached and could only find one thread that someone posted about using steam to clean the seats. Any help is appreciated.

[Jean-Claude]

Horse hair brush

[DetailDan]

Toothbrush, cheap and easy.

[TOGWT]

Remove surface dirt and dust, cleaning the seams periodically is important as dirt / grit will abrade the stitching causing them to fail, use a soft brush, vacuum and then use a foam cleaner, finally wipe off with a clean, damp micro fibre towel.

[GothamAutoWorks]

Air Gun. (Just wear goggles so you don't get pegged in the eye)

[jlb85]

Start with vacuum.

You see how much force you need to apply to "pull apart" the seams to see down there? That is the same thing you need to do while vacuuming with a soft brush attachment, like this:






DO NOT use liquid cleaners until you have been able to vacuum up as much as possible. Anything that gets dissolved into the cleaner (or suspended) will get into the thread fibers and possible under the leather through the holes in the stitching. Clean cleaner is not a big deal, but dirty solution, yuk!

Use the correct cleaner for your leather and wipe as deep as possible to get any remains out. Im my experience, the vacuum gets out almost all the dirt, and a quick wipe is all that is needed to finish them off.