The upper portion of my E55's steering wheel is perforated grey leather and tends to collect and show grime more than I wish it would. Think it must happen as I palm the wheel while parking and such...any tricks or tips? Or, should I just continue cleaning it with leather cleaner?
Thanks!

The steering wheel can take a lot of abuse from contaminates on your hands plus natural human oils. On top of that the wheel is often in direct sunlight and there is plenty of friction from palm steering. Friction is probably actually the worst thing for the wheel because with repeated use you will actually wear away the material. Reducing the amount of palm steering you do is probably one of the best things you can do for long term care. I typically clean and condition these surfaces with leather care products. I personally prefer the Leatherique Prestine Clean and Rejuvenator Oil. If you want to learn about how we recommend you use the leather products I would read our Leatherique Instructions. Make sure you use a leather care product that doesn't have any fillers or greasy residue. Low quality leather care products can clog the leather's pores and make future cleaning/conditioning less effective. Let me know if you have any other questions I can help you with.

Greg @ Detailed Image

Wow! Thanks for the quick reply - now I'll just have to find a local store that carries your products, or are you strictly mail order? Anyway...that is exactly the information I was looking for and appreciate your response.

The Leatherique products are sold almost exclusively online with a few exceptions. Locally you may be able to use Lexol, but I only rate this product as average. Let me know if there is any other leather care or detailing information I can help you with.

Greg @ Detailed Image

have same kind of grey leather steering wheel, in my case the color and finish were perfect until two service trips to the southeast texas mbz dealer

first trip i noticed a brownish smudge at top of wheel, didn't think about dealer fault, second trip much larger smudge/leather finish deterioration across whole top of wheel

clearly the techs at this dealership are monkey slobs with no pride in their work, will always put plastic wrap on steering wheel from now on

leatherique guy will your stuff restore from mbz monkey mechanic greasy hands?

Leatherique will help remove surface contamination like grease etc. If the grease is caked on there it may take some time and patience to fully remove.

Greg @ Detailed Image

Leatherique guy - would Leatherique Prepping Agent remove badly stained leather?

(Hi DU Dean)

I would suggest that Chuck 57 test the rejuvenator oil and pristine clean on an obscure part of the wheel before using it. The reason that I say this is I tried to clean a steering wheel on a 1991 560 SEL a few years ago.

The car was always garaged, only had about 9,000 miles on it and was pristine. I know people are going to say, if it was pristine, then why did you try to clean the wheel? The answer is simple---I am **** about my cars.
I applied the rej. oil let it soak in and then used the pristine clean. It cleaned it so well that the leather started to come off. I contacted Leatherique and their suggestion was to re-dye the wheel. I also posted this on the Mercedes Shop forum and discovered that a number of other people had the same experience.

So be careful Chuck57.

My steering wheel is very dirty so I used water and some softcloth to clean it up, and guess what the die on the part where i cleaned changed from greay to white, guessing the leather dye was lost. I have not cleaned the steering wheel in over a year and it was starting to look pretty dirty.