Hey Guys,
In my opinion, the face areas are real leather, but once I look at the back side, I can tell for sure. Now that does not mean that they are good quality, correct tannage, thickness, and a million other variables. All the interior leather has to meet is the minimum safety specifications required by the FMVSS. Furthermore, a lot of the manufacturers use some kind of vinyl on the edges of the seat for cost savings.
Its sucks that a 85k does not even have a decent quality leather but I guess that's just the way is goes. I personally liked the leather in my 100 series much more then the 200. The 80 that I sold had cloth seats but we upgraded at the time to Mercedes leather, held up like a champ. My current 80 has leather seats which held up nicely, but I recently changed the seat to MB Tex Vinyl:
MB Tex in my 80
I am in the automotive leather business and I have been to many leather tanneries throughout the world and I have seen all kinds of leather. In fact, one time when I was at a tannery in Italy, quality control inspectors from Japan were there on behalf of Toyota performing random inspections. The main tannery we buy our leathers from currently supplies Bentley, Audi, BMW and many others.
Within the next 2-3 years I will be redoing my interior on the 200 with some high quality Bentley Leather. We also have the machine to make the holes in the leather, check our the video:
Leather and vinyl perforation services – Quality Work | Material Flexibility | Quick Turnaround
Here is our stock, over 20,000 cow skins in stock:
