IS-SV

Agreed. Same goes for tan leather, I know after 3 years with a Jag. All can be cleaned.

IS-SV

Good point about the double standard, it's bound to happen when your luxury division is part of Toyota.

btw, metallic paint is optional on Benz, BMW, Porsche cars.

IS-SV

Who knows and certainly there is no good way to measure it. The fact remains C's and E's outsell IS's and GS's, whether it has anything to do with seating materials or not.

mmarshall

True, but I was only responding to the opinion of the poster who opened the thread. (And, for the most part, I agreed with him)

(And, yes, this issue has been raised in other CAR CHAT threads as well, by me and many others)

I have had cloth seats for many years. I take care of them and have never had any problems....except for once, on my 1984 Mazda, where some goofy technician worked inside it with a screwdriver in his back pocket, sat down, and put a nice 2-inch rip in the drivers' seat. I couldn't prove he did it, but insurance covered the re-upholstering.

Now, your bad-weather Jeep...........never mind cloth. THERE is a perfect candidate for vinyl seats, especially in a cheap Wrangler (if that is what you have).

I disagree that cloth, by its nature, is necessarily cheezy. Granted, some cloth feels cheap.....the seats in the Kia Soul that I recently reviewed are a good example. But cloth can be incredibly soft and plush-feeling. I know you are old enough, like me, to remember some of the 60's/70's luxury cars. Many of them (the ones without leather, of course) had extremely plush velour inside.

rominl

iTrader: (4)

like i said, in no way am i denying with that fact that mb is outselling lexus on those two cars, but unless there are further stat, it's incorrect to associate the sales number with the leather option. there is no correlation between them at all

it's just like saying there are more cars than bikes in the US, therefore cars must use less gas (whether it's true or not)

IS-SV

Yes, I do understand about the vinyl seat topic coming up frequently. It comes up frequently on Mercedes forums too. I do see the point about leather being the preferred material in any expensive car.

btw, my Jeep is Liberty 4wd with 3.7L V6. I call it my bad-weather car, but use it when utlity is required.

IS-SV

I don't agree, from a business standpoint it's more simple. I don't see the cars versus bike comparison as valid.

BMW and Mercedes choose to make leather optional to increase profits, and they feel based on sales results versus Lexus for equivalent models that this greedy strategy is not killing sales.

Now as consumers/buyers (or people on this forum) some of us might feel cheated because we expect leather in these price ranges, I can certainly respect that opinion.

PhilipMSPT

iTrader: (5)

It is possible to make a car more profitable by using cheaper materials.

And although that's fine from a business standpoint, it can be disappointing to those who want value from what they buy.

Yes, MB and BMW can sell cars, and they can prove it with numbers. However, there is a general consensus that their products can be better if they use better quality materials.

Sometimes, a little more profit is not worth the taint in brand image.

IS-SV

Agreed, that's a fine line that each car maker must walk, especially the premium car makers.

Allen K

iTrader: (4)

Honestly, MB just went through one of the worst quality phase of its existence and people still bought their cars in droves. I wouldn't worry about MB-Tex

srashid

Well my RX is 4 years old with more than 50k miles, and trust me it looks perfect, better than new I would say with a little wear, and I ski, have 2 young children, carry big stuff sometimes, etc.. What do you do to ruin your leather so quickly? Buy a McDonalds then throw what's left of your burger onto the seats? Use your car as a toilet?

Also by the way the even more expensive Mercs do have standard leather. Why do you thing they offer this when the plastic is so superior?

I do agree with you on the old Mercs on the road though, they do hold up well and they usually have classic design. I've owned a couple so I know exactly what are the good points/bad points with them.

Vladi

BTW E350 does not even feature ventilated seats. That's pathetic.

rominl

iTrader: (4)

let me quote again what you said

i am not talking about margins or anything else. your statement excluding the parenthesis part is true and i completely agree. but there is no direct evidence saying that availability of mbtex actually helps the sales of mb over lexus. your statement makes it sound like mb is selling more e and c because mbtex is standard. my point is that's not necessarily true

LexFather

Yeah agreed. The C/E have higher sales goals with or without pleather.

RX_330

I think he's saying that the fact that mb-tex is on those cars doesn't affect sales and the general public really doesn't care.

I would much rather have full leather than mb-tex. I have an ML and I think the side bolsters are mb-tex but the seating surfaces are leather. Ironically the leather part is wearing better than the mb-tex part but I consider this pretty rare.