No wet bathing suit here, nothing as far as conditioner or cleaner. This is a synthetic material and using leather conditioner IMO is as silly as washing your windows with toilet bowl cleaner. Don't get me wrong, I live in arizona where the temps reach over 120 degrees and the inside temps push 165 degrees. There is no question there needs to be a UV protectant but Lexol is not the answer for Pleather < not a typo
Only the portion where the butt sits might be analine leather as I've seen on other cars, but I don't know, as I've only test drove R-spec the past year or so and wasn't inspecting the leather.. your pics really tell a tale, I appreciate you sharing so I can be aware of it up front.
Quoting from the web..as I concur with your point about syn leather aka pleather, but I'd like to point out I also feel it is definitely worthy to clean (lexol cleaner) and use something with an UV protectant like Vinylex or 303 Aerospace provides on the non-analine leather areas.
'Top-grain premium leather is mostly used in prestige European automobiles; Aston Martin, Bentley, Ferrari, Jaguar, Lotus, and Rolls Royce, US
Cadillac and high-end German automobiles such as; Audi, BMW, Daimler AG, Mercedes-Benz, and Porsche, for most of these vehicles premium leather is standard OEM specified equipment, but for most it’s a ‘premium’ package that costs upwards of 2,000 USD . This is the niche market sector both Leatherique and Connolly were originally formulated for.
Unless a Premium Leather option was purchased the type of leather upholstery used by ~ 95% of OEM is a multi stratum covering over the leather hide; the top strata is the surface pigmentation (colour) and an abrasion resistant urethane. Real leather has a recognizable fragrance that is missing from polyurethane and plastic. Simple cleaning, hydration and protection are the steps that will prolong the life of finished leather'
I do find that lexol conditioner makes my 1992 500e500 MB leather seats (true uncoated analine seats) become taught and add a nice feeling of rich suppleness. Considering it's nearly 23 year old stock leather from the good ol days of Mercedes (car was actually made in conjunction with Porsche) I'm probably seeing much more benefits in utilizing lexol cleaner/condition 3 to 4 times a year than most would on newer/treated leather.