Light coloured seats for everyday use?

[Pitts Pilot]

I am looking to buy a black 2008 SL350, and I have found one that is perfect for miles, price, kit, etc, except it’s upholstered with light Sand coloured leather.

If I were intending to use the car as my second vehicle for ‘Sunday outings’, then I would not worry, but I will be driving it each day and doing over 12K miles a year.

Is it mad to go for anything other than dark grey or black?

What is your experience of living with light coloured seat leather?

And just how easily do the light colours mark or soil anyway?

(I don’t want to go down the ‘dye-your-leather’ route, by the way).

There seems to be numerous cars for sale with light coloured leather seats and trim, so it's clearly a popular choice. I even found one with Ivory leather! (How do you re-sell that?)

Here is 'Sand':

 

[Deleted member 37751]

I've only owned one car with a 'light coloured' interior which was my S211.

We've three young children, which meant I needed to be cleaning the interior once a fortnight, not to mention denim dye transfer...

I suppose it ultimately comes down to how much you 'like' cleaning.

Here's a picture, the colour was a light grey;

 

[Deleted member 6183]

I have beige leather in my Beemer and a kind of cream/black 2-tone in the SLK.

Both have kept OK, I do 40k+ miles per annum in the BM and have never cleaned the leather. It still looks great although driver's seat is a bit darker, I'm sure it would come up like new if I was to clean it.

Had grey leather in my old S class and that did become ingrained after about 7 years, baby wipes seemed to work well.

 

[Pitts Pilot]

I've only owned one car with a 'light coloured' interior which was my S211.

We've three young children, which meant I needed to be cleaning the interior once a fortnight, not to mention denim dye transfer...

I suppose it ultimately comes down to how much you 'like' cleaning.

Here's a picture, the colour was a light grey;

Thanks for the reply and the VERY helpful photos (it's impossible to discuss cleaning without a picture!).

I'll give the matter more thought. The light colour does not seem quite as bad a prospect as I first thought, particularly in view of Lewyboy’s comments (Thank you).

Cheers

 

[Deleted member 65149]

I ordered my new C350 with Alpaca Grey (light grey) leather because I much prefer light interiors. My CLK (just sold) had Orion grey leather (also light) and looked every bit as good the day that I sold it as it did the day that I bought it over 10 years ago. My Porsche 944 S2 Cabriolet also has light grey leather. Keeping the leather looking clean has never been a problem because small marks are spotted straight away and easily removed before they become ingrained and more resilient to cleaning.

Interestingly I've already noticed a downside to the black material sections of my new C350 Sport compared to the light grey I had in my CLK. The floormats showed footprints from the untreated floor of my garage on the first day I took it out! And of course dust will always show up more on dark surfaces than on light.

Go for the SL with light Sand - it looks fantastic in your pic.

 

[C240Sport97]

I have designo porcelain leather in my CLS ..

I always wear clean clothes, and only non colour fast clothes.

Baby wipes are very effective.

Ocassionally use Gliptone leather cleaner, which works very well.

At 27k miles, still looks lovely.

Light interiors do need care and though to keep looking good ...

 

[WillDeBeest]

Best interior I've had was two-tone honey-coloured fabric in a 1998 Saab 9-3. Although the fabric had a veloury nap, and the car was with us for our first 18-months of parenthood, getting it clean was never a problem. A lot of the debris small children generate will show up more against dark colours than light anyway.

I'm kinda resigned to a black leather interior in the S211 I'm looking for, simply because that's what's out there. I suppose there may be a resale penalty in having the less common interior, or one perceived as 'difficult', but shouldn't we - within reason - buy the car we want to live with, rather than be bound by some notion of what the next buyer will insist on?

I think that SL looks great. Go for it!

 

[stevieb15]

I've beige leather in the SE, use it daily and wipe all of the seats over weekly with Turtle Wax leather wipes, 5 minutes at the most.
Comes up a great, I think it's a question of keeping on top of it and you should be fine.

 

[Pitts Pilot]

Thanks for the advice everyone.

I've decided to go with black leather, and to this end I found a 2007 SL350 today at a MB main dealer that is nothing short of fantastic!

Case closed, with my thanks
PS. I will still clean and condition the seats and trim; black leather still needs some TLC?

 

[James]

It also depends on whether it is the smooth nappa style leather or the standard grainy leather. Nappa is more likely to get marked by sharp objects and dark clothing, and get grimy because of its soft, smoother properties - it just needs more regular treatment to stop it attracting muck and is probably no less hard wearing in the long run.