I'm about to pull the trigger on a Deep Sea Mica 2014 ES300h and I can't decide whether to go light gray or parchment on the interior. The parchment seems to be a great match for the Deep Sea Mica but I get the feeling it's a little beige overload and kind of bland. My gut says to go with the light gray but the contrast with the otherwise all black interior seems a little harsh. What's everyone's opinion on the best interior choice? Thanks!

 

IMHO the ES interior looks best in parchment. My 2010 was Parchment and it makes the interior seem a little richer and a little higher end...

 

+1. Full disclosure, I have parchment in my Nebula Gray and love it. Know that the light mats will get dirty quickly and may need to swapped out with all weather mats.

 

I don't know why they went back to light mats. My 2010 w/ parchment had mats that matched the darker upper dashboard area

 

Just vacuumed and shampooed my parchment carpet mats yesterday. We had a tough winter here in the NE and the mats took a beating even with a protective mat on top. IMO, given a second chance, I would not select Parchment. They do look rich and luxurious, but require extra care to stay that way. This would include the leather as well, although you have the gray. Tough choice.

 

I had parchment for nearly 3 years and 45k miles and while it does require regular cleaning, I didn't find it hard to keep it looking good. I used winter mats in the winter (weather tech makes a nice mat that comes in tan) and cleaned the seats regularly to remove any dye transfer. Car looked great after 45k miles.

 

From a maintenance point of view, I'm not sure that there is a perfect choice from among the 3 interior colors available with the ES. The gray available for the ES is, in fact, a very light gray tone. Perhaps, it will show dirt less than the parchment, but I doubt that it will do much better than the parchment. If you are concerned about showing dirt, the black might be the better choice, but even the black comes with its own down sides. Besides the heat that will build up on hot and sunny days, the horizontal seating surfaces will show every speck of dust and dirt on the carpeting will turn the black to a dirty looking gray.

On my GX, I have the gray interior, but the gray GX interior was a much darker gray, and it is, to me, a nice compromise. It doesn't show dirt as much as the tan that was available in the GX, and it doesn't show dust (or heat build up on hot days) as much as the black. But, even with that darker gray, after having driven the GX through a rough winter, it is still going to need a lot of work and cleaning to bring it back to looking good.

Thus, if I were buying an ES now, I'd go for the color that had the most appeal to me. My 2013 ES has the parchment interior. Maintaining it hasn't been significantly different than for the (darker) gray in my GX or the black that I've had in a couple of other vehicles, and I think that, with the ES, I could have been equally pleased (and displeased), from a maintenance point of view, with any of the 3 available colors.

 

We have parchment in my wife's Satin Cashmere and I thought it was too much of the light color. We added the black Weathertech digifit mats and, in our opinion, in addition to the protection, the mats along with the black dash really provide a nice contrast to the all the parchment.

 

I know black isn't one of your color choices, but I chose black on my pearl white car because of the color combo but also because the parchment and gray interiors I saw made the plastic parts of the console and doors so much more obvious and cheap looking. In black, they blend in better and are not as obvious.. Just my opinion.

Get the interior you like most and just know that all interiors need to be cleaned to stay looking sharp.

 

I own a 2014 ES 300h w/ Deep Sea Mica exterior and black leather interior.
So believe, me this color combo exists and looks outstanding.

There is no way I would go with a parchment interior due to the cheesy looking interior plastic near the HVAC controls. Black makes this much less obvious in my car.

 

Black is an available color combo, but the OP was interested in input about the choice of parchment vs gray, not black.

 

Thats interesting, because to me the parchment color hides the sheen of the lower quality plastics, I think black makes them more obvious and cheap looking...thats one of the big reasons I'd choose parchment...

 

That may be true for the materials in the GS (which has much less plastic overall when I looked at the 2014's), but the beige plastics in the door and the side bolsters of the center console looked particularly bad to me when I was shopping for the 2013 ES. I really thought it was too much plastic for a luxury car and I considered the GS, but really wanted the more fuel efficient hybrid over the sport of the GS, but the black in the ES looked OK to me. Everyone has their preferences I suppose and it's good that Lexus provides the options.

 

I also meant to comment that the parchment beige of the ES is nowhere as attractive as the beige in the GS. The GS is a slightly darker richer color.

 

This kind of mirrors my thinking on the interior. Obviously, there is a difference of opinion, but for me the parchment seems to accentuate the "plasticky" elements of the interior more than the black does. Also, I can't help but feel that the light beige tint of the parchment seems to evoke a . . . how to put this delicately . . . "older" driver environment. Maybe I'm overly sensitive on this issue since I'm nearing 50 myself!