agp423

I was cleaning my seats and noticed that they felt very rough... I saw the seat had what seems to be like a matte-finish on top of the genuine leather. This finish can be peeled off, almost like a plasti-dip. Has anyone run into this issue before and know how to fix it?

Pics here:
https://imgur.com/a/KMj4M

Mort

Looks to me like the lacquer finish is peeling off the surface of the leather. Not sure why it would do that or what to do about it. Too much humidity maybe? Interested to see people's experience with this.

Alex.currie44

As I am sure you know, the leather in these seats is not like the fully tanned leathers such as Connelly made years ago for high end Brit cars. They are a skived leather that is treated to receive and bond colour coats that eventually will wear out and crack from flexing. For years many of us have fought the high wear on the outside seat back bolster as our butts wipe it getting in.
What I see here I suspect is that someone has had the seat sprayed to over come wear and it has not been prepared properly and the coating is delaminating from the coating originally applied to the leather when it was first manufactured before being cut into seat parts..
Since the seat is buggered anyway, take a QTip and dampen it with Acetone but no dripping. Roll it across the surfaces where the delamination is occuring on the lighter side and see if it dissolves this coating. I suspect the lighter stuff in your pic will dissolve on to the QTip really easily.
The only fix MAY be to strip the seats and recoat. There is a couple of excellent posts on the R170 SLK website on recoating seats and no doubt perhaps here as well.

agp423

What do yall's leather seats look like in terms of glossiness? Mine is very matte from the coating, and shiny underneath.

Alex.currie44

That is what has me suspicious that they have been recoated. Why to shiny too have come out of the factory wth that gloss under the finiish. I really think what you have there is a seat that was recoated over the oriiginal coating with lousy prep.
As always, the quality of any paint job is in the prep and I think they did little if anything before recoatong that seat.
Of course I cannot get a close look at it so this is all opinion on my part but having worked in the interior coverstock for cars industry I have a some experience and am very suspicious about what I see.