What seat material downgrade? The synthetic material is amazing. So long as it's available, I never want leather again. It's easier to clean, softer, and looks great.
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Leather vs. synthetic
- Thread starter DarkMatter
- Start date
Agreed. I’ve got both - leather in my 2014 S and white synthetic in my 2016 X - and I strongly prefer the synthetic. Easier to clean, softer, wears better.
voip-ninja
Give me some sugar baby
With most vendors synthetic is still a downgrade from real cowhide. I know the Tesla stuff is pretty good (it's similar to MBTEX but a bit softer) but every other manufacturer I'm aware of still offers real leather as a premium upgrade from their synthetic offerings.
BMW offers something roughly similar to "vegan leather" as an absolute base model option on their cars, but the immediate upgrade in their higher end interiors is to various grades of leather.
My wife has the BMW stuff in her Mini and it's pretty horrible.
I do wonder how much of that is perception (though, as you note, you’ve experienced some pretty bad alternatives). Still, we’ve been lead to believe over the years that “real leather” is a luxury item so it has some level of branding to it. As synthetics improve, I’m guessing we’ll have to revisit that paradigm.
voip-ninja
Give me some sugar baby
I don't have a dog in the fight, just my own personal observations and what you can configure for higher end cars and see in the showrooms.
For BMW, in the US market it goes;
Sensatec->Dakota->Nappa
Mercedes;
MBTEC->Nappa
Etc.
Now my personal experience is that the BMW Sensatec is quite horrible (it's stiff, slick, doesn't breathe and gets hot as hell) whereas the Mercedes and Tesla products are better... just still not as good as real higher end Nappa leather.
CuriousG
Active Member
My side bolster started coming apart from the seams a few years back. BMW wanted over $600 to replace the seat and I don't think that included labor. I took it to an upholstery person and he fixed it for $75 and it hasn't ripped since. I went with the base seats because it is a convertible.
Yet if you are buying a ten year old Mercedes you want the Tex, because unless someone has taken amazing care of the leather the Tex will be in much better shape. I think synthetics have finally moved on, when a vendor is willing to spend the money to use ones that work. The same thing has happened in clothing: if you had polyester mixed in to your denim in the 80s it was horrible. Now it's great, and it's mixed in to almost all the denim because of the advantages it offers. Most modern automotive leather is coated in plastic anyway, to top it off. Given the disadvantage of leather (high maintenance requirements, toxic tanning process) a high quality synthetic seems like an upgrade.
Sunshine State
Automotive Enthusiast
We had two new BMW X5’s we purchased in 2016, one with Dakota leather and one with Nappa leather. The Dakota leather was ok as long as you have never sat in BMW Nappa leather seats. Both our Tesla’s have Nappa leather and are very nice, both are better than the Dakota but not as nice as the BMW Nappa in smell or texture. I guess it makes a difference what grade leather is used. I have noticed that the Tesla leather doesn’t seem to hold up as well as others because before buying our X we looked at a couple showroom Tesla X’s with less than 50 miles. The worn model X Nappa leather seats had seat time from customers trying the seats and already had lots of deep wrinkles on the edges, much more so than other manufacturers seats I have seen in cars at the NY International Auto Show that get incredible abuse. I guess it just depends on what you are comparing them to. It would have been nice for Tesla to have offered a better grade of leather as an option as well as the vegan pleather. Because there are not any Tesla pleather seats out there that are very old to make a true statement of long term durability I guess we will have to wait and see. I did ask Tesla if they would replace the worn drivers seat in the showroom P90D we considered purchasing and Tesla said that was normal wear and not a warranty item. On the other hand BMW happily replaced the Dakota leather driver seat and door trim in my (100 lb) daughters 3 series due to a noticeably worn edge under warranty
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jelloslug
Active Member
Just an FYI: "Nappa" leather is not a brand or a type, it's just a general style of the surface finish.
jelloslug
Active Member
I would gladly swap the real leather in my Model S with the new synthetic material. With exception of the most high of high end cars, leather upholstery is basically plastic coated for surface uniformity, colorfastness, and stain resistance anyway.
Sunshine State
Automotive Enthusiast
Both of my daughters have late model BMW 3 series cars, one is a 320i and has the base Sensatec (Vegan leather) and a 328i with Dakota leather. The Sensatec looks like brand new but is developing small cracking on the side (not seat area) which BMW will replace under warranty. The Dakota did show signs of wear which they replaced. Not sure if the current Sensatec is better than the old because it doesn’t feel thick or stiff to the touch and in my opinion seems better than the Dakota (which I believe is stiff). Neither seem as good as the current BMW Nappa leather which seems like the best on the market. In full disclosure I did replace both X5’s with Tesla cars
Sunshine State
Automotive Enthusiast
Sunshine State
Automotive Enthusiast
I’m sure the Nappa leather in our cars will wear with time, both are still well under 10,000 miles. I’d gladly swap for better quality Nappa leather if I had the choice. It’s a shame for the price of the Tesla cars they didn’t use higher quality leather. Tesla did swap out the seat in our X due to stripped gears in the reclining mechanism when it was first delivered. Funny thing is the new seat bottom has a wrinkle in the leather in the same spot as most other X or S premium seats.
Not sure what synthetic leather is. Sounds like a misleading way to say vinyl. I like my Gen2 leather seats in my S but am sure these seats will be fine, too. However, my memory of vinyl seats in a couple of my parents old cars back in the 60s can be summarized by one word: Tacky. Worse yet, they didn't hold up. Hopefully fifty years of development have improved them 1000%.
Xenoilphobe
Well-Known Member
How does Zebra leather wear? Or Ivory ? Or Mink? I'm not sure they will be advertising Vegan Leather to anyone who is a collector.
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Xenoilphobe
Well-Known Member
I remember the Vinyl in our old Ford Country Squire smelled like vomit. I also remember the smell of lead laden gas, from the suicide jump seats in the back of our "Woody" with a rear window that rolled down, so you could inhale all the exhaust as your parents crawled to the beach in heavy traffic -- now I remember why they smelled like vomit
jelloslug
Active Member
It’s not vinyl.Not sure what synthetic leather is. Sounds like a misleading way to say vinyl. I like my Gen2 leather seats in my S but am sure these seats will be fine, too. However, my memory of vinyl seats in a couple of my parents old cars back in the 60s can be summarized by one word: Tacky. Worse yet, they didn't hold up. Hopefully fifty years of development have improved them 1000%.
Sunshine State
Automotive Enthusiast
So you say real leather is basically "plastic coated" but fake leather isn’t vinyl?
jelloslug
Active Member
Yes. The material is polyurethane.So you say real leather is basically "plastic coated" but fake leather isn’t vinyl?
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