Regretting not getting leather

Perforated leather is an option with Katzkins. I got it on the seating surfaces.

 

I don't see spending hundreds or thousand or so to put leather on a driver's seat that has mechanical adjust lever and NO TILT adjustability. These basic fabric seats are worth $100 or so in covers, that's it.

 

Anyone know if we can just order a center console leather cover from katzkin or some other brand? The center console is the only piece that REALLY bugs me because the cloth looks super cheap and like it will wear out pretty fast. Plus idk why all the cloth in the car is a charcoal color, and the center console is black

I figure doing the console is the one piece that I can do fairly easily.

 

Many say light colored leather and interior is cooler in hot sun.

 

How is it sticking your elbow on the center console? It's nothing but thin fabric over hard plastic. Several hours buying material / sewing, strapped on armrest pad - (did I already post this here??) Foam by the shifter just put on for right knee. Have to move seat out of preferred setting due to scant steering wheel adj range, result, lacking thigh support. At least console / pad there to help out. I cannot call this car 'tall friendly' due to the inadequate steering wheel adjustment range both tilt and telescoping.

 

OP, the local dealer near me is quoting $1,188 installed OTD via local upholstery shop. I don't know if katzkin is used. The dealer parts guy said they cut their own leather from scratch, but $1,200 sounds too low for that kind of job so I'm thinking its a pre-cut kit.

 

You're not missing anything since it's not even leather, it's pleather. yes, man made fake pleather. you're better off getting an aftermarket product as others have suggested.

 

Hot or cold; cloth seats are more comfortable than leather, but leather wears better and cleans easier. If you plan on keeping your car a long time, I'd personally opt for leather seats because they hold up better. That's why I bought a used 2011 with leather in 2012: I didn't want cloth or vinyl seats.

I'd avoid aftermarket leather for the sole reason that the car has seat airbags. Even that the aftermarket suppliers can show you a video of an airbag deploying through the seat cover; how can you be assured that the split seam is properly positioned, and yields at the right time, pressure and direction in accordance with Toyota's design considerations for the proper operation of the seat airbag? How would aftermarket suppliers be aware of Toyota's design considerations? The answer is that they can't because that information is proprietary to Toyota. It's not an open platform architecture.

Aftermarket leather suppliers are in the cut and sew business, not safety engineering. A deployment differential of hundredths of a second can be the difference between an airbag that performs as designed or one that doesn't. An airbag inflator is a pyrotechnic device (essentially a solid rocket motor) that deploys the bag at 150 to 250 miles per hour. A projectile moving at that speed that presents at the wrong angle or timing can do significant damage.

If you have confidence that the cut and sew shop has done their homework to reverse engineer Toyota's safety design and properly validated it with instrumented crash dummies in barrier impacts with actual cas as Toyota needs to do, then you should feel good about aftermarket seat covers. If you have doubts that a cut and sew shop could have such expertise or has made the extraordinary investment to validate performance, then maybe you'd be better to consider a car with factory leather.

If you're comfortable to roll the dice, go for it, but don't turn around and run for a lawyer if God forbid you have the occasion to discover that the cut and sew shop didn't have the necessary know-how. Good luck with your lawyer's argument that Toyota was responsible for non-performance of a safety system that you and your cut and sew shop modified.

There are lots of things I'd go to the aftermarket for, but I draw the line with safety systems. The fact is; you don't know what you don't know and IT CAN happen to you.

 

You may want to consider a seat cover "vest" that avoids the airbag deployment area and protects the primary sit area.

 

I bought something very similar for my BMW (from BMW) several years ago and it's been very comfortable.

 

I've never done business with them so I couldn't vouch for this company or their products. Sorry. Perhaps someone else on the forum can offer some guidance for this company.