sr20bet

Many manufactures use leather seats due to the public's perception of luxury and 'higher class' status of such surface materials. Other than ease of cleaning and the psychological induced aspects of the materials (feeling good, etc...). I would say leather is only good if you plan on keeping your car for a few years, otherwise it will start to show its age unless you take care of it religiously.

Typically the areas which show the most wear are the upper and lower side bolsters.







I think manufactures should start using synthetics on the side bolster areas to prevent this from happening. If people want leather they can still use it on the main surface areas, but for durability and cosmetic reasons synthetics would be better over the long haul.

The only area where I could see synthetics lose out is in auto review and the such, as they would say the seats are not 100% leather and what not. But they only review the car when it is new, if they were to do a long term review of a used car 5 years down the road, they would see the benefits of synthetic materials on side bolsters. In addition it would be upto consumers to understand the benefits and disadvantages of each system.

I've owned cars with cloth, leather, synthetics (bmw & mercedes) and I would choose cloth and synthetics over leather if I were to keep my car for the long haul. I've compared my 2005 bmw with the synthetic leatherette vs. a 2005 bmw with real leather and the car with real leather has more wear and tear on the seats (and the guy took decent care of this leather).

Here's an old seat from a e46 bmw still holding up well after many years of service.



I'm happy I sold my VW with leather seats (the seats were still 9/10 when I sold the car, but when I met up with the buyer recently for coffee I asked to take a look at the car and I noticed the seats have deteriorated to about 6/10 after 3 years.

I'm happy with the leatherette in my e46. It's still 9/10 after 6 years and doesn't show any signs of advanced aging.

I would consider a honda/acura with leather if they offered a blend of synthetic materials and marketed the benefits of such items to the public. However they will never market such benefits as business are in the model of upselling and projection images of luxury to end users.

I'll start a follow up thread in the coming days/weeks for those that like to use leather exclusively on all seating surfaces.

It would be great to get the feed back of members regarding the aforementioned.

sr20bet

Acura Integra seats didn't show up in my original post

VQPower37

its funny i dont have any of those wear marks on any of my cars, i guess it depends how u get in and out of the car... although i do agree that acura leather is not that good

SoCaliTrojan

In the Acura TSX, only the perforated areas of the seats are leather. The rest of the seat is made of leatherette. In the TSX, the creases are in the leatherette (because they are on the sides of the seat).

mrgold35

I had my 06 TSX w/ quartz since May/06 (+74,000 miles now) and my seats look nothing like the picks above. I only condition my seat once or twice a year with armor all leather treatment gel. I usually wear Dockers type pants during the week and jeans on the weekends and my TSX don't show wear like that. I'm also 6'3" and over 300lbs and I use every bit of my seat.

My seats don't look factory new after 5 years of use. I categorize them in younger “MILF” condition.

sr20bet

Younger MILF condition....that's a classic!!! Keep up the good work

Jottle

The side bolsters on the horizontal cushions for the front seats look just awful on every tsx that's had any sort of use. These parts are fake leather. Every TSX I have ever seen (probably 25 or so total) 04-08 has these creases in the fake leather side bolsters. They're unavoidable no matter how well maintained. Just check out your driver's side bolster closest to the door. The passenger side usually looks much better because fewer people have sat in that seat consistently over the age of the car. If you have a lot of rear seat passengers, note the condition of the side bolsters on the rear seat. If these are the same fake leather, I imagine they would look the same as the front seat. I guess it all comes down to the type of material one uses, not just leather vs. pleather.

davidspalding

Colin posted his "poke" method of differentiating the leather from the pleather ... poke it with your finger. If it creases, it's leather, if it stretches unnaturally, vinyl.

I don't have creases in the vinyl but I do in the driver's left top leather panel. "Finished" leather like the TSX' generally doesnt need conditioning, but I use light cleaning wipes (ArmorAll) get dirt and perspiration off, and condition once or twice a year with Maguiar's (not the best, but economical enough).

I've priced the leather seat covers on Acura parts dealer's sites, and they're not as expen$ive as I expcted. Less than having a custom shop do it.

davidspalding

Oh, I've also had the joint between the two outer plastic pieces (incl. the one with the seat adj. buttons) break, replaced both. I think the force of weight on that spot makes it wear out.

Euro-R_Spec_TSX

I think my seats look sort of average for 55k miles. Not great but not too bad. Side bolsters seem to be the worst part though.

I have the solution... kevlar side bolster covering.