I think a few more posts from you and I will buy an Omega watch instead. You bring a good point. Safety to me is a lot more important than looks. I see nothing about side air bags on katzkin.com.
I had leather in my 2010 Highlander and the driver seat leather stretched and started to look a little odd. That was just with 2 years of use and 28000 miles. I had cloth in my 05 Camry and it didn't disintegrate or stretched much in 7 years I had the car. This was one of the main reasons, I picked III and not went with IV. III had everything I wanted, but now I want leather. Hopefully, Katzkin quality and durability is better than Toyota OEM leather. Softex might be more durable than actual Toyota leather though.
I took a class in Consumer Behavior in College, agreed it was so long ago I can't recall much of the information. However Buyer Regret or Buyer Remorse was covered in detail. I think you should leave the Cloth Seats and read this link. Buyers Regret is very common in big ticket items like Cars and Houses. You don't want the Leather Seats. Your trying to relieve the discomfort from Regret with Leather Seats. Once you accept the Cloth Seats as the wise decision your anxiety of regret will disappear and you can get back to being yourself. There is an old saying my Father used to say on occasion. A fool and his money are soon parted. When he said that and it ticked me off, but more often than not he was correct. Put that Money to better use and frankly the Cloth Seats are much better than those hot and sticky leather ones. Most people won't even notice the seats beyond the first look. Buyer's remorse - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
It very well could be buyer's remorse. I think I am much happier with Prius than I was with Highlander. I am looking at all my options and I have not completely ruled out the option to stay with cloth seats.
great post. I can live with cloth seats...but...I think leather is nicer...but...I can live with cloth seats. I think your post has just made my decision to stick with cloth. Thanks.
Yes, on the Katzkin. Our Rav4 had them installed w/ seat heaters. Never regretted this install. DBCassidy
III had everything I wanted. I didn't care about the JBL system, as base system sounds more or less the same to me. I didn't know about the Softex steering wheel until I started this post; I had Softex in my loaner V and didn't even notice it. HUD is a novelty feature (like touch tracer display) IMO. That left me with heated leather seats with lumbar support and at that time, paying $2700 more for it didn't seem like a great idea. Keep in mind that I was not very happy with the quality of leather that was in my Highlander and Prius being another Toyota, I assumed Softex would be even worse. That being said, I understand your point and I feel bad to replace perfectly fine cloth seats with leather. After 6 months of use, my seats look as good as new. At least, now I know what my options are and how much this upgrade should roughly cost. In the end, I might just keep the cloth and save the money. If I go with the upgrade, I am certain that I will go with Katzkin. However, I need to see a finished product in person first and make sure the side air bags will work with Katzkin.
I have installed Clazzio seat covers that have a leather insert for the sitting part of the seat cover they fit well and look like they could be OEM. Another option might be to source some seats from a recovery business. We call them wreckers here in Aussie. I forget what the American name is.
I have cloth seats and I'm ok with them. But, I don't see myself using them without covers. I just can't wrap my mind around wiping seats to get them clean. Can people expect to wipe their clothes to get them clean? Perforated leather is in the newest Accord and Acura has them. Suppose to breathe a bit better.
Have u ever thought about spraying water repellent solutions on em? I don't know how well that works but I've heard of ppl doing that. I'm definitely doing that if I keep the cloth.
If you spill something on your cloth seats, you can take it to an upholstery cleaning shop. They will shampoo it and use steamer to get stuff out of your cloth seats. Putting cloth covers on cloth seats will only save you from dry spill, which in most cases is not very hard to clean anyway. If you spill liquid on your cloth seat covers, chances are that it will go through your cover to your seats by the time you will get something to wipe it off. Sprying 3M repellent will be much more effective than seat covers and seats covers just don't look that good IMO.
Some people (ok, salespeople) have said leather looks a lot better when the car is older. They also say cloth absorbs sweat and ends up smelling foul on older cars. Said it before, but around here EVERY luxury car on lots has leather or leather like seating. Mercedes, BMW, lexus, Acura, etc.... none of them have cloth. I bet there are incredibly few buyers with money asking for cloth seats in their car. It's always the higher trim, more expensive models come leather or leather-like trimmed. But we don't get 100+ F weather all summer long. Perhaps in Phoenix, or much of the rest of the country, luxury cars come with more cloth seats, or do they?? I can't imagine luxury cars with cloth seats. If I can help it, I'll never buy another car with cloth: I want to be able to sit on the OEM covering and I don't see doing that on cloth, even with Scotchgard. Power seat also mandatory.