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How did we Brits get suckered in to believing that leather inside cars is a desirable thing to have and pay extra for it?Freezing cold in the winter,red hot in the summer,slippery at any time,beats me,probably something to do with our collective sheep mentality 'i've got a silver car with leather'just the same as everyone elses.(Cannot be different,far to subversive).
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Whilst all that you say is true, it does look good.
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...and in winter with the seat heating on it's really nice! Plus the slipperiness is an aid to getting aged mother-in-laws into and out of the Jeep.
One shove - job done!
Terry
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But just how fast are you going when you push her out!
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Not fast enough evidently!
Terry
"Just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand"
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Agree 100% T but we could not live without a sunroof and unfortunately with air con replacing them on most cars now the only choice we had in the Honda line up in our price range was the Civic Sport which was half leather but only had 3 doors or the exec which came with "full leather" but it does have heated seats. As for the summer, I am not looking foreward to that.
Regards Mal.
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Agree 100% T but we could not live without a sunroof and unfortunately with air con replacing them on most cars............
A sunroof is optional extra on a lot of cars that have aircon ~ see What Car? magazine. I couldn't live without both a sunroof and aircon.
--
L'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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"How did we Brits get suckered in to believing that leather inside cars is a desirable thing to have"
Errr, it looks better, it's easier to clean umm, don't identify with the too cold in winter bit - that's what heated seats are for.
As for too hot in summer, that's 3 days a year then :-)
I'll take that over trying to keep dark coloured velour clean and tidy any day.
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SWMBO's 2000W Clio has grey leather, but like the others mentioned above, the sides are plastic - very good match admittedly.
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My Mercedes 260 had leather and in the South African sun you burned the backs of your legs getting into it when wearing shorts..
In the UK leather is freeeezing in winter.. why do I drive a car with leather? it's the smell stoopid..:-)
madf
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Usually when a car has leather upholstery it also has heated seats :) I prefer it to velour or fabric, I find that much harder to clean and it wears much quicker too.
I won't have a car without leather now
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Heated seats are a good source of profit for manufacturers. It costs around £2 for a heating pad and approx 20 secs for an operator to assemble it.
The results are good though!
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This subject has been discussed at great length on Volvo web sites over the past few months.
I was most unhappy to discover that the 'full leather' on my V70 2.4T SE is in fact leather only on the faces that touch the person sitting on a seat. As a previous posted stated, the backs, map pockets, under-knee pockets, sides, and door inserts are all a (good copy admittedly) vinyl.
Since I purchased my V70 in March last year, the description has been changed to 'Leather faced seats', but my brochure and Dutch sales invoice (I imported my car to full UK spec) clearly states 'Off black leather seats code XXXXX'. No mention of 'Off black part leather seats code XXXXX'. The seats that are textile and leather were clearly marked as such in the brochure, but not the ones that are infact a vinyl (surely this is a textile, too?) and leather combo.
Apparently (hearsay, but I can believe it) the change came after Ford purchased Volvo, and wanted to increase the profit margin of already profitable Volvo, to help prop other, relatively ailing, parts of PAG, such as Jaguar.
My father's five year old S80 has full leather seats on every face, and lots of minor bits and pieces that my V70 lacks, such as red lamps in the door frames. All current P2 platform Volvos (S60, V70, S80) simply now have a stamping mark in the panel.
I must say however that it's a terrific car, with which I am delighted. It's just the fact that I was hoodwinked that annoys.
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The heating elements in leather seats do not make up for that first freezing cold touch and take several minutes to warm the seat,in the summer the leather heats up to such a temperature that you cannot sit on it and the a/c struggles to cool the car because of the heat stored in the leather.As for 'easier to clean'i cannot comment other than it depends on what sort of stains you are likely to get on your seats.
For me i think we have really been conned into thinking its a must have luxury option and paying extra for.
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I once had a 1947 Triumph Roadster. The entire front seat was leather, including sides and fold-down arm-rest. The door linings were of tooled leather, as were the pockets.
Even the two fold-away seats in the dickey were real leather.
And of course it had real wooden door cappings and dashboard.
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....as did my Dad's 1936 Morris 8.
My Ford F-150 had leather facings to the headrests and front seats but all else (including the rear seats) was vinyl. Pointless. Also the front leather wasn't that great, very thin. it's an ego thing I guess.
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I can get my Honda in India redone in Leather for 400 pounds (you saw it right), might go up to 600 for a merc. for another 200 they will do the dashboard also. Now you see the profit.
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Yup, I can match or beat that in the Philippines. The place I know does the replacement/repair work for BMW so their work is A1. Got a Harley seat redone in goat leather (beautifully soft) for about 20 quid your money.
Thinking of having my 3 month old Lynx done actually, they quoted
300 pounds equiv front and back. I think the difference here is we are getting real leather, individually hand tailored and stitched and the accompanying craftsmanship, as I'm sure would be the case in India too as I recall from my own days there. The factory stuff probably has no chance of matching that.
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Did somebody in this thread say that he has a SILVER car? Is that full silver? Or is he allowed copper wires? Maybe some bits of the car are plastic as well. And is it really hard enough for the valve seats? Are all the individual bolts hallmarked?
A Full Silver car? Wow!
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Sitting on a Goat you say? Well you can buy a City Rover with the exterior from a Yorkshire Terrier. It works to because you always feel like you're in a dog....
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My V70R seems to have the best option. Full leather seating front and back, but the panels for your backside and back are alcantara (suede-like) which is (a) very grippy, and (b) warm.
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If it has alcantara panels then it can't be "full" leather. If the panels were genuine suede that would be different.
I have never owned a car with leather seats, but whenever I have sat in one, I certainly wished I did.
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Not sure what alcantara is made from, may indeed be a posh name for suede. But certainly the best combination I have tried. Though it's a more expensive option I believe.
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I always understood that alcantara was leather used inside-out, i.e.suede. As it looks to me like an ex-Arabic word, I looked up my Spanish dictionary, which tells me that whatever it means, a small version (alcantarilla) is a sewer (=drain). Make of that what you like.
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I thought Alcantara (as used in car seats - I know you can get a leather called alcantara) was man made "look and feel alike suede"
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A note on the V70: Early models (2000 on) appear to have full leather on the seats, they obviously changed at some point (possibly for the 03 model year) and it took a while for the brochures to catch up.
Sadly, this is all too typical of the V70 which has turned out to be one of the most disappointing cars I've ever owned. It's a fundamentally great design which has been "de-contented" to death. Far too many things about it from the quality of the mechanical bits to the quality of the plastics, trim, electrics, build and some aspects of the engineering are, feel and look far too cheap for the class of car.
I can understand Volvo want to make a profit but if you do this by removing costs you have to be clever and Volvo haven't been. Somebody from Volvo (or more likely their parent company) obviously looked over the original design and said "Hmm. It's nice, but lose that, lose this, change to cheaper supplier for that, it doesn't matter if that rattles etc. etc."
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I can understand Volvo want to make a profit but if you do this by removing costs you have to be clever and Volvo haven't been. Somebody from Volvo (or more likely their parent company) obviously looked over the original design and said "Hmm. It's nice, but lose that, lose this, change to cheaper supplier for that, it doesn't matter if that rattles etc. etc."
That was called 'Value Engineering' when I was in the building game - a ghastly concept.
CF
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I'm struggling to understand why anyone would be that bothered that the non-contact bits of leather seats are well-matched vinyl!
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...I'm struggling to understand why anyone would be that bothered that the non-contact bits of leather seats are well-matched vinyl!...
Because
1) You can be pretty sure that as the car ages, so will leather and vinyl at different rates
2) I was hoodwinked, and that hurts.
The price premium paid does not justify a few square centimetres of leather when you thought you were buying a herd of cows. This is doubly the case when you consider that the vinyl used for non contact areas is probably cheaper for Volvo to buy than the velour otherwise specified!
Sure you can draw a parallel with buying a car second hand from me, and saying I should reduce the price if I was originally given the car as a gift. Of course this has no bearing on its value, even though people like to think it has because they don't like the idea of someone making a killing with their money. By this I mean if Volvo make a 'double profit', does it really matter to me? No, it doesn't, but the fact that it was done in a manner whereby I didn't get what I thought I was getting, hurts.
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Never known it to be anything other than a synthetic material meant to replicate suede. Invented in a Japanese lab it was marketed by the Italians under the trademarked "Alcantara" name. Useful in applications where the good qualities of suede are desired, but its wear rate and expense is not. Often found in racing steering wheels and seats for the previously mentioned high levels of grip and comfort.
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Indeed, RenaultFamily.
Alcantara, whether used in cars or elsewhere, IS a textile designed as a leather substitute. A quick Google will confirm this.
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maybe the 50% vinyl is to cater to the vegetarian lobby. Read a story of how Paul mccartney bouthe a merc ML, ripped out the leather and substituted rexine - mind you the cow was already dead so what was the point !
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My Mk II Daimler Jaguar (1964) had 'leather' seats with plastic parts...nothing new eh?
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