I love my basic interior! - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

ekam · 07-11-2009, 03:39 PM

Just cleaned the leather seats, steering wheel, shift knob and handbrake lever with Lexol leather cleaner & conditioner.

For my plastic/vinyl dash, often times I just wipe it with a microfibre cloth! No need to worry about letting leather dash sit in the sun or worry about the leather cracking. I use 303 Aerospace Protectant just a few times a year.

I have to have basic interior for my next one... and people actually pay $3k for full leather option? Crazyness if you ask me!

angman · 07-12-2009, 12:38 AM

I have a 97 with a full leather interior and its been fine. I park the car in the sun with the top down all the time too. I barely even use any products on the leather. I mainly wipe it down with a damp cloth once in awhile to keep the dust off it.

Scbrindley · 07-12-2009, 05:54 AM

I have full leather in the '09 911s and I love it. The interior looks so much better with it imo. I just treat it every now and then with lexol an it keeps looking great. The car is kept in the garage so I'm really not that worried about it cracking.

As far as in my Boxster, I wish that I had full leather. I really think that Porsche went cheap on the interior in my '99....the dash looks like it shares the texture of a football.

SB

Boxtaboy · 07-12-2009, 05:58 AM

Not to mention, the full leather looks and smells terrific. My 01 doesn't have it, but after driving some of my buddies' pcars with full leather interiors, I'm definitely ordering mine with it on my next one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by angman

I have a 97 with a full leather interior and its been fine. I park the car in the sun with the top down all the time too. I barely even use any products on the leather. I mainly wipe it down with a damp cloth once in awhile to keep the dust off it.

blue2000s · 07-12-2009, 06:37 AM

Leather adds about 20 lb to the car.

RandallNeighbour · 07-12-2009, 12:02 PM

I got rid of my nasty, faded vinyl door panels and love my new-to-me leather ones.

One day I'll remove my dashboard and send it to Corpus Christi, TX to the guy who advertises he works on 928's. He told me he'd clad it in leather for $450.

Or, someone will offer me a good deal on a black leather dashboard like I've done with all the other updated parts on my car and I'll take the deal in a heartbeat.

spyder803 · 07-12-2009, 12:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RandallNeighbour

I got rid of my nasty, faded vinyl door panels and love my new-to-me leather ones.

One day I'll remove my dashboard and send it to Corpus Christi, TX to the guy who advertises he works on 928's. He told me he'd clad it in leather for $450.

Or, someone will offer me a good deal on a black leather dashboard like I've done with all the other updated parts on my car and I'll take the deal in a heartbeat.

Randall there is currently a red leather dash on ebay that may interest you. Price seems reasonable.

rick3000 · 07-12-2009, 01:56 PM

I am not going to say the basic interior is better or worst than full leather, but I do not find my leather interior hard to care for. I clean/condition the leather every few months and it still looks like new. It's not hard to maintain at all, and looks great. Plus, leather is far more resilient than plastic. If I was ordering a new Porsche I would opt for the leather interior but wouldn't pay for leather wrapped air vents like the previous owner.

CRCGuy · 07-12-2009, 09:40 PM

For a moment I thought this was going to be a post about ripping out the interior!

I wonder if anyone here has done that and how much weight it saves.

I almost did that to my 95 Miata before I sold it--probably would have been louder but then, it's a drop top would have felt good to discard all that padding/cloth/vinyl and get it down to the basics! to improve fuel economy and save the planet of course.

ekam · 07-13-2009, 04:20 AM

Checked out my friend's V8 Vantage again last night... the whole interior is full of leather (Yes even inside the doors where you can't see when the doors are closed), roof is fully lined with suede. Now that's what I want if I got an AM.

You guys should see some Ferrari's old leather dash shrinking due to wear/age. Not fun.

Kirk · 07-13-2009, 08:18 AM

I gotta agree with ekam on this one. I've got a Boxster with the basic plastic dash and I've got a 996 C4S that came standard with full leather. Sure the leather is nice, but quite honestly I think the plastics in my Boxster S are good enough that it's really hard to tell the difference between the two of them (both are black). I don't think I would have paid extra for the leather any way. They stretch it so thin and give the plastic the same kind of texture such that you have to look really, really closely to tell the difference. In fact, I just got my C4S and still need to spend some time trying to figure out exactly what is leather and what is plastic so that I can treat them appropriately! Now I was also looking at buying a Maserati and in that car the dash leather was thicker and more supple and I definitely felt like it added some refinement to the car.

Kirk

CRCGuy · 07-13-2009, 09:48 AM

But doesn't the leather have stitching that sets it apart from plastic?

BoxsterLewis · 07-13-2009, 10:13 AM

My leather has Shrunk on my driver door and top of my dash

Ive tried oil leather rejuvinator and all sorts of stuff but wont undo the srinkage. The dash doesnt look to bad but the door is not pretty. Happen to anyone else?

Kirk · 07-13-2009, 09:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CRCGuy

But doesn't the leather have stitching that sets it apart from plastic?

In some places there is stitching so it's easy to tell apart. Other places it does not, so it's very difficult.

Kirk

edevlin · 07-14-2009, 02:14 AM

"Leather adds about 20 lb to the car."

Wow, I am suprised it adds that much weight, interesting,

Ed