Leather Seats?

[Sprintey]

Most leathers, or pleathers over the last 20 years in mainstream cars age appallingly. Grandad's Jag they 'aint.

My 2c is that well maintained cloth is more comfortable and easier to keep in a 'new car' state over time.

What Mazda did with the MX-30 interior recently harked back to those 80s cloths, was a nice design.

[.:4:.]

Originally Posted by Sprintey

With great POWER comes great responsibility

Use that button wisely

Early 90s fairmonts/fairlanes were true comfy fat guy cars. I mean that in the best way. Yes they were boats, but thats comfort when doing long trips. My grandpa had a 5L eb fairmont. That thing was a lounge on wheels. My brother still has an ed fairmont wagon. Its been sidelined for a long time, same interior as my grandpas eb except grandpas had done under 100k, my brothers is just a 6 but has over 900 on it so needless to say many more farts in the seats and the foams, well they are a thing of legend. As in dont really exist.

[Sprintey]

Absolutely, we bought a 6 year old ED GLi Classic as our first family car when kids came along, in many ways it was more comfortable and just a better product than much that came after it!

I bought the Sprint for nostalgia reasons missing this car, but I got a monster instead of the smooth 6

Sprint is comfortable, great mix of handling and comfort btw, back seat is mint

Edit: also I reckon the comfort in those cars was part of an absolutely nailed product brief, then refined over half a decade - no wonder that it was the best selling car in Australia at the time.

[DFB FGXR6]

Originally Posted by .:4:.

Early 90s fairmonts/fairlanes were true comfy fat guy cars. I mean that in the best way. Yes they were boats, but thats comfort when doing long trips. My grandpa had a 5L eb fairmont. That thing was a lounge on wheels. My brother still has an ed fairmont wagon. Its been sidelined for a long time, same interior as my grandpas eb except grandpas had done under 100k, my brothers is just a 6 but has over 900 on it so needless to say many more farts in the seats and the foams, well they are a thing of legend. As in dont really exist.

My father had an EB II Falcon GLI wagon as a company car up to 2003. The car was worn out in the end, but it had the most comfortable rear seat I have sampled, and extremely generous legroom afforded by being on the longer wheelbase. I used to try and sneak the power button on when Dad was driving, used to give him the sh.ts.

Mum's car on the other hand was a first-gen Subaru Forester, easily the worst rear seat I have experienced, with rock hard cushioning and no legroom for a lanky teenage boy. Absolutely hated that car, utterly gutless, uncomfortable, and terrible clutch feel which made it ridiculously easy to stall. It was also surprisingly expensive to service.

[Sprintey]

One suprising thing is when you find 'luxury' trim that has the thin leather, and harder seats than cars lower down in the range! Just found that out with RAV4 Cruiser vs GXL, the cloth GXL seats being quite a bit more comfy.

Everything in Subaru felt tinny with hard seats - the one exception the Nappa Leather in the Outback Touring - most comfy seats I've come across in a new car, front and back. Better than our Territory.

I once looked at a low km BF Ghia - back seat was like rock. Must've been part of the Top Gear sporty luxury fad of the 2000s, made chiropractors rich.

[.:4:.]

Originally Posted by DFB FGXR6

My father had an EB II Falcon GLI wagon as a company car up to 2003. The car was worn out in the end, but it had the most comfortable rear seat I have sampled, and extremely generous legroom afforded by being on the longer wheelbase. I used to try and sneak the power button on when Dad was driving, used to give him the sh.ts.

Mum's car on the other hand was a first-gen Subaru Forester, easily the worst rear seat I have experienced, with rock hard cushioning and no legroom for a lanky teenage boy. Absolutely hated that car, utterly gutless, uncomfortable, and terrible clutch feel which made it ridiculously easy to stall. It was also surprisingly expensive to service.

Thats brings up a memory thats kinda funny to me. In 95 my old man bought an ef futura wagon brand new. It was the futura classic so had the twisty 15 inch alloys on it and front electric windows. He always said that was the most hassle free car he ever had. In 2001 he traded it in for a merc ml320. Well, that was a 6 month wait for the benz not because there was no stock. All the floor stock anywhere were leather seats with sunroofs. My old man payed extra to get one with cloth seats and no sunroof so it was a 'custom' order. Wont get into the cost breakdown of my parents ownership because in the 16 years they had it that was quite a lot. But the drivers seat got retrimmed once, passengers seat base replaced once not due to anything manufacturing, due to my mums friend fat john who weighed closer to 200kgs then 199kgs.
Interior of that car, well, it was just ok. Nothing special. But unlike most whats considered full size suv's it did have a transfer case.
In the 18 months prior to being traded in it cost my mum 21 grand in repairs. Trade in was $3500.

[Big_Daz]

Heated seats I can take or leave, my wife loves them though, as well as the heated steering wheel in the Sorento. What I am a fan of is the seat cooling on a summers day....

As for leather, last car without it was our Jeep Grand Cherokee (2015 WK2 Laredo) and even though they where cloth, damn they where comfy. Since then all the cars have been leather (The Nline Tuscon I had for a year was black suede which looked good but was a bugger to maintain). The Nappa leather in the Kia has stood up well after 105k km and is still perfect but the surprising thing is how well the Leather in my 2017 Redline is going after 7 years.

[onemanempire]

Originally Posted by DFB FGXR6

Did you drive them with the POWER mode selected, which lit up with a green POWER lettering on the dash? More POWER!

Maaaate.. I did a LOT of things that only rental cars can do...

Where do I start? Hope you have a few minutes, as this will be a L-O-N-G read.

Sound system: Excellent. Alpine 8 speaker jobbie from memory. I was amazed at how reliable the cd's played. (My girlfriends new 1994 323 Astina would skip running over a pothole). I tried to make the Fairlane 6 stacker skip by getting it air born over a pair of train lines at 80 kays an hour. Nope, as hard as I tried, it would not skip a beat. It also came with a demo audio cassette tape. That in itself was gold. It explained how to use certain features of the car on side A. Side B featured lots of different music for you to get accustomed to the sound system, and it's various settings. I felt like I was a rich man driving one of these.

Transmission: I have not used a better one, auto that is. The best feature was the power button. When used in the economy mode, it allowed 99% throttle upshifts, so you could use the torque of the sweet EFI 5 litre. Gear changes happened at around 3500rpm at near full throttle. Wonderful sound and feel.
I remember selecting 1st gear at 80 kays an hour at 0% throttle... and watching the tacho slowly climb from 1200 to 5500rpm so smoothly. Meaning, if you had an open can of drink on the centre console arm rest, it would not fall over or spill. It just eased into 1st gear ever so graciously, as smooth as. No other renter came close. And trust me, I was a MAJOR hire car junkie... for years. Loved learning about the new things manufacturers invented.

Handling:
My favorite hoon roads (back then) were - Delamere, and Gorge roads.

Delamere: South road to Victor Harbour was a blast. Most corners were sign posted at 95 kmp/h, but the "fairy" would easily do them at 180.
My only complaint being that I used to run out of car... not road. Fairlanes are factory speed limited to 183kmp/h... I did manage to see 190kmp/h down Willunga hill in neutral once, that's when I discovered how they speed limited them. The engine stalled at 184.. so I figured it was an electronic fuel cut.

Found out many years later from a Ford mechanic that: the reason they speed limited them was because they were throwing tail shafts in the Northern Territory, at 200 kays an hour, where there was no speed limit in some parts. So instead of fixing them problem, they put a band aid solution on it and restricted it to 183. Cheaper fix I guess.

Handling continued - Gorge rd:

Well, the quickest way I can sum that up is: it's like taking your lounge chair for a flog. No body roll, outstanding grip... for a luxo barge. Really inspired confidence when on the limit. Not a bad word to be said really. The self leveling suspension worked flawlessly.

Noise Vibration and Handling: smoooooth, quiet, super comfortable. Nothing more to say.

Cooling system: I used to take them down to Aldinga beach at midnight / 2am, on a low tide. Airport runway smooth beach to play on. The first thing I used to do was to hold it flat on full lock doing donuts to see if it would over heat. Nope. No issues there. Winner.

Yeah sure, it ran hotter than normal, but never went past a tad over half on the temp gauge.. the same can't be said for the 6 cylinder versions, as they did over heat with the same punishment.
The next thing I enjoyed doing was high speed drifts. The most memorable one was, when I did a full lock drift at 100 kays an hour facing the water, flat in 2nd gear going perpendicular to the water for like 5 seconds... then losing it. What a thrill. Worst part was all the sand that used to accumulate inside the wheels, and put them out of balance.. Supermarkets are a great resource when it comes to fire hoses..

Engine: the only issue I had with one of the many I "used" was it had a few noisey lifters on returning it. I picked it up with 350 odd kilometres on the clock (not 350,000 kms) and returned it with approx. 2300Kms of very hard kays. Daylight savings night. You get 25 hours for the price of 24. Didn't sleep much, to busy enjoying myself.

When I returned it they asked me the kilometres travelled. I expected a raised eyebrow... but nothing was said, as it was unlimited kilometers. Winner!

So summing up: to this day, one of, if not, THE best standard car I have had the pleasure of driving. Many times.

I wish - even now - that I could have purchased one new. Such a great thing.

One Man

[portokatsiki]

I prefer the velour seats in my T1 TE50 than the leather ones on my T3

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by DFB FGXR6

My father had an EB II Falcon GLI wagon as a company car up to 2003. The car was worn out in the end, but it had the most comfortable rear seat I have sampled, and extremely generous legroom afforded by being on the longer wheelbase. I used to try and sneak the power button on when Dad was driving, used to give him the sh.ts.

Mum's car on the other hand was a first-gen Subaru Forester, easily the worst rear seat I have experienced, with rock hard cushioning and no legroom for a lanky teenage boy. Absolutely hated that car, utterly gutless, uncomfortable, and terrible clutch feel which made it ridiculously easy to stall. It was also surprisingly expensive to service.

Thats a Subaru thing, they're not cheap to buy parts for and shit to work on to boot, did a couple alternators and AC compressors on that era Subaru and always had salty owners whinging about how much it cost.

[fordomatic]

Originally Posted by portokatsiki

I prefer the velour seats in my T1 TE50 than the leather ones on my T3

I'm the same, unless it's a high end euro, give me cloth any day. I had my AU P250 seats redone in proper leather because they were so bad. I still prefer the Cloth seats in My XR8 rebel over the P250 or my AU Sportman with the Howe leather.

All Ford and Holden leather is absolute garbage. Easy to clean when you have kids though.