G'day genphreak, I fully understand your reluctance to risk damaging the seats during transport.
With regards softening the leather, mine were all like cardboard and I was very sceptical as to how well these products would work, but I followed the instructions that were supplied and the letter as you have seen came out looking really good, and that was before buffing them and I must say the leather itself was as supple and soft as if it were new.
I did spend a considerable amount of time working the rejuvenator oil into the leather before I sealed the seats in black plastic garbage bags and left them in the shed during a really hot week to sweat. The instructions suggested a day or 2, but time didn't allow me to return to do the cleaning step a week later.
I have to admit, I was amazed to see how well they cleaned up using the cleaning product and how the deep creases had all pulped up and I'm thinking the extra time being sealed in the black plastic was the trick to softening the leather as well.
Some of the other instructional videos I have seen have suggested using a hair drier to artificially increase the heat to make the leather sweat, being in Qld this was not necessary :-)
Perhaps you might be able to sit your seats under a strong flood light or something to speed up the process and distribute the heat more evenly than a hair drier would?
Let me know how you go, I'd be really interested to see what results you get using the same products.
