Have been working a number of projects and also do not have a lot of time sine I work full time 900 miles from home so,.. when I finally got around to getting my 1996 Alpine White on light gray leather M3 back on the road.. I was dismayed to find lovely green mold/mildew on about 1/4 of the surface areas that are leather. The interior was of course nice and humid when I opened her up to start working on her. What is the best way to get rid of this? I tried (as has worked on my 911) Mr Clean Magic Eraser to clean this off and it did mange to get a tiny bit of it off but the majority is still there. Are there any brands that people recommend?.. any magic mixtures that you have found to work in this situation? I'd really like to get it back on the road before the summer.. and I've done a lot of work to it and to have it sitting and rotting, seems a crime. Help? Bill Miranda Stafford, VA
Well, that kinda sucks - haven't had to tackle something like that before, so here's just a couple of things from googling. I searched "how to clean moldy leather" and many links came up, you may wish to peruse more thoroughly. http://www.wikihow.com/Clean-Mold-from-Leather http://vintageclothing.about.com/od/alterationcare/ht/leather_mold.htm also: https://www.google.com/#hl=en&sclie...12,d.dmg&fp=209568df0f36d1d0&biw=1027&bih=616 You may want to determine why this happened in the first place and do something to keep the interior dry - one site on cleaning mold from leather shoes mentions damp-rid, or silica gel. The page said damp-rid may be had from WalMart or elsewhere, and silica gel from craft stores. You will definitely need something to absorb excess moisture, or induce conditions that inhibit mold growth, without overdoing it and harming the leather by over-drying the interior. Good luck, hope you can get it all taken care of quickly & easily!
Thanks for the response... I found a few of these sites... and was hoping someone had something they had tried in their cars... i don't need to get rid of 100%... I just want to kill it off as I have a gray leather dye kit that I can use to make the seats look like new again. Issue was that the trunk seal was leaking and since I had the back seats down (my cars act as storage bins for parts I buy for them,.. until I have the time to get to them).. it caused the humidity issue with the car interior... I initially noticed it when I saw fogged windows on a sunny day... /sigh. Anyway,.. the water has been removed.. the car is dry... I used rust treatment on some miniscule signs of rust (in trunk along a seam,.. about 1" long... sanded to metal and treated and painted) and the seat mold/mildew is all that's left. I have dessicant in there now but but still have the stains. I am thinking of either a dilute Alcohol or bleach solution followed by leather conditioner and after a week or so,.. re-dying the seats.
My wife runs a cleaning business and said to mix equal parts of rubbing alcohol and water, and wipe with a soft cloth.
