Leather on steering wheel and gear knob

[freezerlunik]

Hi guys, my '03 MO is starting to show some signs of "withering luxury" on its steering wheel and shifter. What (if anything) have you used to rejuvenate the leather on these high-traffic surfaces?

Is it possible to re-wrap the shifter knob with new leather? Is that knob easily removable? It didn't appear to want to unscrew under moderate amounts of force so I could take it home and give it a spa treatment

[implant man]

Hello fellow Vancouverite!
I too have my Murano showing a little age in the leather components. i wonder if a cleaner (leatherique) would help revive this!?
We should compare our models if we live in the same city!

[zebelkhan]

Originally posted by freezerlunik
Is that knob easily removable? It didn't appear to want to unscrew under moderate amounts of force so I could take it home and give it a spa treatment

Grab the cover at the bottom of the shifter knob and pull it straight down. If you look in ther, you will see a C-clip. Familiarize yourself with the position and orientation of the knob and the clip. Now pull the clip out and shifter will slide ride off.

[Beng]

Hey Guys, the steering wheel on my Mo was all shiny and so I used "Lexol" leather cleaner on it. Big mistake. It cleaned away all the grime , but left bare patches all over it. With ony 48K KM's on it I tried to get Nissan to fix it under warranty. No luck. I lpriced out a replacement steering wheel from Nissan, $1100CDN + tax +installation. Even the dealer was surprised at how expensive it was. In the end, the dealer put me onto a local company that re-sprays the leather. Basically, they spray painted my steering wheel. It does look better than it was, but it does not look showroom new. If you are interested, let me know and I can see if I can find the guys number again. He had a mobile service and came out to my work place to do the work.

[Eric L.]

Alternatively you can stitch on a "wheelskins" type cover on top of the stock leather. Gives the wheel rim the fat look of BMW steering wheels. I have one of those on mine and it looks great (not cheesy like those cheap covers - it looks OEM). Just takes a lot of work sewing the cover on.

[freezerlunik]

Originally posted by zebelkhan

Grab the cover at the bottom of the shifter knob and pull it straight down. If you look in ther, you will see a C-clip. Familiarize yourself with the position and orientation of the knob and the clip. Now pull the clip out and shifter will slide ride off.

THANKS! I'll try this tonight! Thank god I didn't try to use even MORE force to twist the knob off counter-clockwise

[freezerlunik]

Originally posted by Eric L.
Alternatively you can stitch on a "wheelskins" type cover on top of the stock leather. Gives the wheel rim the fat look of BMW steering wheels.

I am leaning in this direction myself, once the existing leather gets really ugly, I'll probably find a place that does car upholstery and let them rewrap the wheel and shifter knob with new leather.

[Tyler_Canada]

I would NOT use leather treatment on the steering wheel. In fact, most leather treatments bottles say just that, don't use on steering wheel. Why? It makes it REALLY slippery.

In regards to the shifter, I had a new one put on, courtesy of the dealer, as they broke my original one. It doesn't feel anything like the original one. The original felt like leather, the new one feels very cheap. I'm not sure if they cheaped out on me, or if all the newer ones are like that.