This happened. Originally there were some some spots that were darker than the seats that I wanted to remove. I saw a tutorial on Youtube where a guy sprayed warm, soapy water on his seats and continually vacuumed it off until the stains were gone. I attempted to do the same and my seats look worse than when I started. As an OCD car guy this drives me nuts. Is there any hope that my seats will return to their original color? Note that the discoloration is MUCH more mild in real life, my camera made it a lot worse, there is just some lighter discolorarion.

If anyone has any ideas or tips on how to get this out permanently that would be greatly appreciated.

 

 

Yup, it might take awhile for the foam and cover to dry out. You could use a hair dryer on its lowest setting to hasten the drying a bit and see if it looks any better if you didn't want to wait for it to dry on its own.

 

I know it appears that way, the picture was taken in the dark and the lighting really makes it hard to understand what i'm trying to convey, but it's been two days and a large portion of the seat is still significantly more white-colored than the rest of the black upholstery on the seats. I feel like the mixture of dish soap and water that I used created this. If anyone has any suggestions as to how I could restore the seats to their original color that would be much appreciated. Here is a better photo in better lighting for context. You can see the discoloration on the bottom portion of the seats. I worked at a car detail shop a couple years ago and we had a very, very strong industrial grade stain remover that we used on our cars that could remove almost anything. If I remember correctly we just sprayed it and scrubbed super hard to remove nearly any stain from any car. Would this sort of thing work to remove the discoloration from my sears or would it simply make the discoloration worse?

 

That's why I selected leather seats...

 

rent one of those cleaners that spray warm soapy water, and then, sucks the water out. that may be your best bet

 

Or how about trying to use a dedicated auto upholstery cleaner versus some home brew method? The white staining is probably just soap residue.

 

 

I'd have to agree with these. I think that's soap residue (and maybe some of the original stain) smeared around and dried. I'd just try cleaning it with lots of plain water and lots of clean dry towels to soak it up. If that doesn't work then yeah, you're looking at going to a proper auto upholstery cleaner.

 

Where I live the water has a lot of minerals in it. It will stain everything. I've been told there is a lot of calcium in the water.

Believe it or not, I might try what you already did, but this time use distilled water.
Spot test a small area and see if you can get it to look better.

 

in the past when i have come across this...trying to even out the color on my seats...i would use a spray foam carpet cleaner and rub it in with a medium to soft bristle brush...then crack windows and let air dry.