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Does anyone like leather seats? To me something like the sporty cloth seats that James has are perfect. I really don't see the advantage that leather has over cloth, and in several cases I'd just outright think cloth is better. But at some point as you move up to the better trim packages on a car, leather gets in there somehow. I guess it's
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i'm partial to the looks of the altima personally. i had a '97 and '01 altima. the only complaints i really had about them is the turning radius. it made the widest turns of any car i've ever driven. i checked into getting a new altima since they have a hybrid now and the raduis is smaller than before, but there weren't any on island to buy let alone test drive.
the honda looks nice too though and i'm very pleased with my honda thus far. i can't believe you said that you don't like the looks of my car though! it's super cute and loves the environment...which makes it super cuter:)
i think i told you this sunday, but i absolutely hated the mustang i was renting! it felt like it didn't have very much horsepower, it was extremely loud, and didn't hug turns very well at all like a good convertible should. now i'm driving around a beetle convertible which i'm starting to fall in love with. i hate the look of the car, but the feel of driving it is amazing. germans really know how to make a car!
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Didn't Brad have a Nissan Maxima? And yet he said Nissan wasn't a good brand... I am confused. I have never heard much bad about them, but they don't have the name wight that Honda has.
I've actually never seen your car, I guess I assumed it wasn't the new look Civic. But if it is, then yes, I hate your car. The nose it too sloped or... something. Maybe that makes it cute? In which case it works great for you, but not so much for me.
Loud is a big complaint that I've heard for Mustangs. I get the impression that they just aren't designed with comfort in mind. It's hard for me to complain about comfort and volume given what I drive now ;)
You didn't comment on leather! Have I asked you that? I seem to bug anyone that will listen. I'm guessing Hawaii is pretty warm which would be a good test climate for how bad leather is during the summer, but I don't know if any of the cars you've had over there are leather. This is a serious dilemma in my mind, I've even though of seeing if it's possible to swap out the leather seats for the equivalent cloth ones.
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i realized i forgot disclose my thoughts on leather as i was driving around in my convertible this morning. do you know why i thought of it?...because it has leather seats. it's pretty awful. i drove around the coast basking in the glow of an island in the sun and then had to peel myself off of the seat once i got to my final destination.
on the plus side, i was also driving around earlier with the top down and it started raining. so the inside of the car got very wet for a little bit (you can't raise the top of a car while it's in motion and i was on a "highway" so there wasn't really anywhere to pull over for awhile). just a wipe of the seat and it was good as new. i can't say the same for when basically the exact thing happened two days ago with the 'stang.
you're not interested in getting a convertible though, so i say down with leather!
oh...also when i was little i remember my dad had a manual somethingorother with leather seats. in the summers the seats would get so hot i couldn't sit down for a minute or two. his seats also cracked a little like howie mentioned earlier.
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I feel like I'm repeating myself by talking about it so much, but that's basically what my line of thought has been the past week or so. I love the new Honda, but I don't like the leather. I could get a 4 cylinder coupe with cloth, or a 6 cylinder sedan with cloth... but not a 6 cylinder coupe? It just hurts my head. I may actually be more willing to go down to the 4 cylinder than pay for an EX-L V6 with leather. That sounds totally ridiculous to me, but since they only offer the most expensive trim for the V6 coupe... I don't know.
Maybe there will be some special order option that I can get rid of the XM, leather, and whatever else they have in EX-L. I understand why they want to have only a few trim options: it's easier on them to only produce one kind. But it's just my luck that last year they had an LX V6 which is pretty much exactly what I would want for the price I want... and then they decided not to make it for 2008. So faced with a nearly $30,000 car with roughly $4,000 worth of features I don't want, but can't not get... well, I guess the only thing to do is keep on thinking about it until my head explodes.
I appreciate your thoughts on the leather though, always good to hear some first hand accounts :)
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As for leather in hot weather(and I've had plenty between FL and AL), I've never had a huge problem with it. I don't tend to wear clothes where much of my skin is touching the seat (and I don't think you do either?). Even the shorts I wear aren't *that* short. Seems like hot steering wheels and seatbelt buckles have always bugged me more.
As for upkeep, I *never* put anything on my leather to clean/condition it and it took like 8 years for my driver side seat to crack some, and its not even that bad now. None of the other leather in my car has cracked at all, and I'm sure the driver seat would be groovy if I had done even a little maintenance.
I think one of the main draws of leather (and this might be less true vs. the higher tech fabrics in some cars these days) is that it stays nice longer than fabric seats. Fabrics tend to loose color from being in the sun so much. Also (and I might be totally wrong here) I think a lot of the 'old car' smell is deteriorating fabric or deteriorating foam that you don't smell as much through leather. This is just a guess though, and, again, might not be relevant vs. the higher tech fabrics found in nicer trim packages on sporty cars.
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That's a great example, I rode around with you plenty and never had a problem with your seats. I guess the fact that I didn't remember that your seats were leather is a good sign.
I have definitely read that leather will keep the car smelling new for a long time. It's not permeable so things don't seep into it (or out of it in the case of the foam) so it stays nicer. Of course, that's why it's hot in the summer: it doesn't breathe.
Thanks for the comment, good to hear from you. I'm not sure I would pick leather if I was choosing, but now I don't think it's quite the travesty that I was building it up to be.
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