Before the pics, let me say this. I know I've beat the beautiful leather to he!!. I've been so busy over the last year I just haven't been able to keep up with it. This forum has had many debates over the years about the best way to clean the Castano leather (I've even chimed in on my favorite product years ago), but no one has ever really posted direct before and after examples.

So here it goes. When I first got my KR (in 2003), I keep the leather conditioned frequently with Griots Leather Conditioner. Great stuff, went on easy, looked good, lasted long, and smelled great. Then I had way too much happen, including a move. The last year I had way too much to do at work and haven't been able to keep on top of the truck cleaning like I wanted. I've stopped at a detailing place several times over the last year for help, but have seen more dirt collected on the leather since using them. I know they use Lexol, but I can't say that was the problem since I haven't kept up with the overall cleaning myself.

This weekend I was finally able to put two good products to the test. I picked up LeatherCPR at Bed Bath & Beyond (from some of the comments posted here). and I found Zymol Leather Cleaner and Leather Conditioner at Bass Pro (I remember a comment on Zymol here and I really like their car wash).

I used LeatherCPR on the driver's side. Before cleaning, the seat looked like this:



I cleaned the seat according to directions. There was minimal effort before the sponge started to show it was picking up dirt, and I wasn't sure how much to scrub the seat, so I stopped when I thought it would be ok. The end result:



On the passenger side I used the Zymol. First I used the Leather cleaner with a clean white terry cloth wash cloth.

 

After letting it dry completely I used the Leather Conditioner. The cleaner seemed to require a lot of effort, and as I scrubbed the leather the terry cloth beganto leave a residue (pieces of the cloth) on the leather. The end result:



I cleaned the top part of the steering wheel with Leather CPR and didn't touch the bottom part at all. Here are the results:





My final impression is the Zymol my work ok, I just needed to use a sponge instead of terry cloth towels as directed. The LeatherCPR did pretty good, and may be even better if I put more effort into it.

I hope this helps.

 

Good post MusicMan. I have also tried the Leather CPR and have determined that it is probably a decent cleaner, but lacks in the conditioning side. So I have gone to cleaning with the CPR and conditioning with Leathermasters - both of which I believe can be found at Restoration Hardware. I have also just used Johnson's baby shampoo to clean as well.