So we recently added more cars to the residence and for convenience sake, I park my GS outside on the curb sometimes when I get home last. The other night, I left all 4 windows cracked open for fresh air (habit). Let's just say a pretty huge storm (for socal) occured while I slept and I didn't realize until the next day. The interior feels a bit humid, the leather hasn't fully dried yet and some of the leather has wrinkled (think armrest area, and seats).

I removed the carpet to let them dry and prevent mold etc...but I want to know if anybody has tips for getting my leather back to normal.

I don't need to say I feel like crap because I know most of you already know how we would all feel when our cars are in incidents like these and I'm not mad because it was my fault, just dissapointed in myself for letting this happen.

Tips, suggestions or similar stories are welcome.

 

Wife left windows down in a storm once in my LS430 so I have some experience in this area...

Get towels out on the seats to absorb as much as you can.

Use a wet/dry vaccum to pull as much water out of the carpet and seats as you can (be careful that the vacuum isn't super-powerful one when using on leather so that it pulls it in - can't recall if the GS has perforated seats which will help it work well).

Not sure if this is an option for you to pull the car in a garage (or even outside) with the doors open and let air circulate through it. At one point I had two large Patton house fans blowing through front and back and two small oscillating fans inside. I did this for a full day.

We also got some small buckets of moisture absorbing material (usually used in damp basements) and left them in the floorboards - not on the leather! - overnight for about a week to help pull additional moisture out of the car. I'll try to find a link to them - didn't know they existed before this incident. Edit - here is the stuff... we used two little buckets I'd guess 40 oz size found at Ace Hardware or Home Depot
http://www.damprid.dsiwebbuilder.com....asp?cat=40019

After the leather was as dry to the touch as I could get it with towels & wet/dry vacuum I used Meguiar's leather conditioner on it pretty heavily, then repeated about a week later.

Car came out fine without any issues.

 

Sorry to hear about that. As a vendor, its always nice to make the sales and see the outcome of the cars with the products I've sold. But not in this case. I don't think its right to prey on someone else's misfortunes.

So here's what I'll do...
If you can post some pics of your leather so I can see the damage, I'll send you some Leather Master products that should take care of your "wrinkled" leather.

PM me your info (name, address, contact phone#) and I'll get that out to you.

Todd
DetailEmporium

 

Wow big thumbs up for Todd doing that! Sorry to hear that G star. You still like your shift ****?

 

Hope your car returns to normal. Big thanks to Detail Emporium for helping a fellow member out. That is great

 

oh man that sucks. I would try to dry it out as much as possible with a blow dryer and pill the leather straight out to remove the wrinkles. If that doesnt work I would call the dealer and order new leather parts for the car. sorry to hear about the drama

 

very cool detailemporium........glad there a vendors out there that still have a heart

 

Aww man that happened to me last year.....i was parked outside my friends house and i guess somehow my key opened all my windows during a storm..... moisture fogging up my window for like a week. sorry to hear it happen to you also.

 

Wow...sorry to hear that. The main thing is to let air circulate...like Dave said. I hope you don't get the funk smell.

 

Oh that sucks,I left drivers window open in a big snowstorm 3 years ago in oue ES. I was so pissed at myself but nothing really bad happened,I just left windows open on nice days to air and help dry it out.

 

Good luck with that...happened to my Maxima once...and I also parked it in the garage and let it air out. But the leather on that car was different than Lexus, it was tougher and not much water got in the seats.

 

hey guys, just reading through the thread. Same thing happened to me and some of the leather was wrinkled on my drivers seat. So did the wrinkles ever go away and flatten out smooth again? what was the process in order to get the wrinkles out? thanks

 

I used to have a Mustang convertible and someone cut a whole in my roof in order to get inside and steal my stereo. That same night it poured rain so my entire interior was soaked (cloth seats). In the end I had to have the seats removed and the carpet pulled out to have the mold cleaned out as a result and it seemed like the windows would still fog up on the inside for a long time after. Lucky for you it was leather. Good luck.

 

I just did this to my wifes RX the other day. Opened the sunroof and left the windows cracked a good 4 inches as it was parked in the HOT August sun. Well took off for the afternoon with her Dad in his LS 460 - nice ride. Sorry I digress, it started pooring and we were out and I was like WOW huge rainstorm..

It wasnt unitl we were about a mile from home that I remembered I left the windows open. CRAP. Anyway. I pulled the wet floor mats. The rain had stopped. opened the windows and towel dried (many towels) the intererior. It was laste at night. So after I ran the car, using the A/C to blast the damp areas. I shut down the project until morning.

Same thing the next morning ran the A/C blasting damp areas. Dried the car good again.

We had a trip that day and I drove with windows open and blasting the air. Left the car open ALL DAY.

Finanally in about 3 days ZERO dampness at ALL.

The only issue was the ABS light came on, I searched the Forum and found I could remove the EFI fuse to reset. That worked and no problems since....

My two cents on recovering after water in the car !!!!

 

Very cool bro! You just earned my business! To OP as long as you don t get mold or mildew the car shouldn t smell I know white rice will draw the moisture out of things not sure how you feel about pouring rice on your seats tho.