CEOEngr

After the seats were redone, does the seats ventilation (!) still work? Can you feel it?

NM600HL

Yes. They were very thorough. The Alabaster leather is actual Lexus leather. The black is not - it is a much higher quality. They matched the perforation and upgrade the seat foam - but ensure that the density of the foam faciltated the ventilation system - front and back.

patgilm

NM600HL, you have to hook us up with some nice quality pics! The pics you posted must be from your phone and are not clear.

How long have you had your car? You said you bought it with 15k miles and the seats were badly worn? Any before pics? Where was the most of the wear, the side bolster or the bottom left side of the seat?

NM600HL

I purchased it in February, 2011. I am the 2nd owner. Overall I love the car - but the guy selling it for the owner (deceased) was a sleaze. I asked and asked for interior pictures but there was always a delay. When I finally received pictures the interior was immaculate. However, he had taken the seats and had them dyed and filled - which works great if you are just looking at it, but after you sit on it for a day or two - they go right back to where they were... Luckily I had a $5K hold on the purchase price of car - basically when buying a car remote, the received condition has to match the condition of the car as presented in the photographs - mine did not. So it reduced the price. Actually surprised he accepted it given he knew what he had done... BTW - I had Lexus do a CPO level checkout of the car - and they never mentioned a thing about excessive wear...

Lesson learned - no matter how much detail you get and how much checking you do - nothing compares with putting you eyes on something in person before you buy it. Ultimately - I came out where I would have wanted to be - I replaced the seats for $5K and the price is what I would have paid for it given the condition of the seats via my acceptance holdout.

Anyway - most of the wear was on the bottom outside of the seats. I have before pics, but all the really clear ones are offline. I'll attach the pic the seller showed of me the passenger seat (at the detail shop he took it to) and the pic I took a week after i had the car which is the pic I used to indicate to the leather shop how I wanted the seats done to obtain the initial quote. . The drivers side seat was easily 4x as bad.

I am having car detailed next week and taking pics (interior and exterior) with my 14MP canon - will post to my garage

patgilm

^^^ Seriously, I don't even know how that happens especially with the passenger seat and with 15k miles on it. Did the driver's seat look like that as well or worse? That looks horrible. My car has 30k miles on it and while the seats are in near perfect condition, the armrest needed to be replaced. The old owner must have constantly put pressure on the armrest and used lotion on his arms a lot because the dye on the leather was completely worn out.

NM600HL

Yeah - needless to say I was shocked when they seats went from the 'detail' shop pic to that in less than a week. I'm a big guy 6'2" 245 (think Linebacker) and my cars have never worn like that. The previous owner looked to be about 5'10 and 160lbs (80 year old man and his wife) - so they did not stress the seats on size alone... The leather shop guys said they were not impressed with the quality of the Lexus seat leather. They have a number of tests they put it through and they acquired actual Lexus leather to replace the alabaster leather on the front seats - they said they would put it at mid grade... I think that car just had a run of bad luck seats and dash wise. Lexus replaced the dash (looks fabulous) and I am very happy with the way the seats turned out (now my NM edition is truly unique).

jsingh13

How much were those two tone leather seats, if i want to get that done. ?

thanks
Jay