How To Keep Car Leather Seats From Cracking and Tearing – THE GUIDE

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No doubt, leather seats are a fantastic addition to every car, no matter which color they are. However, many people have problems with the leather on their car seats starting to crack and tear, especially for people who drive their cars often. Today, I decided to show you how to keep car leather seats from breaking.

To keep car leather seats from cracking, you should protect your car from sun and heat, regularly clean your vehicle, and also pay additional attention to cleaning and maintaining leather seats with high-quality cleaners and protectants.

Keeping car leather seats from cracking and in like-a-new condition for years isn’t a challenging task, but you should be consistent and give them the attention they need. When properly cleaned and maintained, leather seats will last for years.

Fixing cracked and torn leather seats is a hard and often expensive task, so you should do everything to prevent that from happening. 

Below I’ll show you some great and easy tips that you can implement in your daily routine, which will ensure that leather on your car seats last longer but also look beautiful.

8 Tips To Prevent Leather Seats From Cracking

Eight tips might sound too much for a typical car driver, but when you read them, you’ll realize that they’re effortless to follow, and most of them are somehow connected to each other. So, without furder ado, let’s see them!

1. Park In Shade or Garage

First things first, you should park your car in the shade, or even better in a garage if you have it. That’s important for car leather seats and many other things in the vehicle (paint, plastics, tires, etc.).

Sometimes, finding a free parking spot in the shade may be tricky, especially in large crowded cities. But by doing that, you’ll move your car away from the biggest destroyer of car leather seats – the sun. Suns’ UV rays harm leather seats, and you should keep that in mind.

2. Open Car Windows During Hot Summer Days

During hot summer days, even if you park in the shade, it would be good to open the windows on your vehicle slightly. It’s even more critical if you keep your car in the sunlight.

Temperatures inside the car can quickly reach +50 C (122 F) during the summer, and by opening car windows slightly, you’ll create an airflow in the vehicle, making it cooler. That’ll save your leather seats in the long run.

3. Use Windshield Sunshade

If there’s no way for you to park the car in the shade, you should then install windshield sunshades every time you leave your vehicle in the sun. Most of the heat in the car is generated when sunlight goes inside the car through the windshield since it’s the largest glass surface on the vehicle.

Windshield sunshades are incredibly cheap, and they only take 30 seconds to install. So, installing them won’t do any extra work for you.

4. Close The Panoramic Roof Curtain

Panoramic roofs are a fancy piece of car equipment, and even though they’re beautiful, they can generate excess heat in your vehicle. Not only it’ll increase the temperatures in your car, but it’ll allow the sunlight to direct contact with leather seats, making them even more exposed to harmful UV rays.

Every car with a panoramic roof has a curtain that you can open/close. When not driving your vehicle, make sure the curtain is closed. That’ll reduce the suns’ impact on the interior of the car.

I remember when I had a car with a panoramic roof, and I forgot to close the curtain a few times, it was impossible to get into the car without leaving it with wide-open doors for at least 5 minutes. The heat inside was painful.

5. Tint The Windows On Your Car

Tinted windows aren’t just a fancy-looking addition to your vehicle; they also have the purpose of reducing the amount of sunlight and UV rays to enter the interior of your car. That way, they’ll protect the leather on the seats.

So, if you have some extra money to spend on your vehicle, think about installing tint films on windows. They don’t have to be darkened. All high-quality tint films will have protection properties, regardless of their transparency levels.

However, darker tint films seem to do a better job. Also, don’t spend money on extremely cheap tint films – their quality is questionable. Always purchase tint films from reputable companies.

6. Install Seat Covers (if you’re ready to compensate on car seat appearance)

Okay, even though installing seat covers doesn’t make sense for most people, it’ll still prevent car leather seats from cracking.

Why doesn’t it make sense? Well, I wouldn’t be paying extra for fancy car leather seats and then covering them with something ugly just to keep them “new” for longer.

So, if you’re ready to compensate for the appearance of leather car seats, and their look isn’t so important to you, you should install car seat covers. They offer excellent protection to leather seats – from the sun, spills, daily usage, sharp objects, etc.

7. Keep The Staff In The Trunk (Especially Sharp Stuff)

A friend of mine works in construction, and all the time, he drives plenty of tools in his car. The bad thing is that he keeps most of it (especially shovels) on the rear seats. Many tools tend to be sharp, and they tend to scratch the leather.

Scratching the leather breaks down its protection, making it easier to crack in the future.

So, if you also drive plenty of things in your car, try to keep them in the trunk. I know that some things just can’t fit in the trunk, but at least try to fit them there. You’ll save a lot of money in the long run (by keeping leather seats from cracking for longer).

8. Regularly Clean and Maintain Leather Seats (THE MOST IMPORTANT)

Last on the list, but the most important advice I can give is to regularly clean and maintain your vehicle and leather seats. Without following this tip, all other suggestions are worthless.

Without proper cleaning and protection, leather car seats will crack easily, even if you follow all the abovementioned guidelines.

Whenever cleaning and protecting car leather seats, make sure to do it gently with soft leather cleaning brushes (Check my recommendations here) and with the right products that are safe for leather.

When you clean leather seats, you should protect them with some high-quality protectants that’ll last. From my experience, one of the best leather conditioners is Meguiar’s Gold Class Leather Conditioner (check the price on Amazon now). It’s not expensive and works fantastically.

Final Words

Keeping car leather seats from cracking isn’t rocket science. You should just keep them away from the sun and heat and clean and protect them regularly. With time, the tips above will become your routine, and that’ll keep leather protected as much as possible.

We can’t wholly influence external factors, but we can do many prevention steps to reduce their impact on our car – and by doing that, we’ll keep our car shiny and beautiful for many years to come.

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