I stumbled on this interesting article, which says that most automotive leather today have a vinyl coating:
http://www.303products.com/tech/inde...product_id=565
The bottom line is that maintenance should be the same as for vinyl.

The article says almost 100% of American and Asian leather interiors are plastic coated. Although European leather is often uncoated, plastic coated leather has become common in Europe as well. This would explain why MINI's leather feels like plastic and people have trouble telling the difference from leatherette. The article even has a photo of a MINI English Leather (lounge leather in 2nd gen) rear seat!

 

My experience would be no, MINI leather is not coated.

Mark

 

Well how cheap can they get? Just a thin layer of Vinyl? Glad I got the leatherette with its plush 100% Vinyl.

 

For the cars they're talking about, it's actually not really a "vinyl" coating over the leather, although it may as well be. The difference comes about from how the leather is dyed.

In the MINI and most other European cars with leather upholstery, the leather is "drum dyed" or "vat dyed". In this process, the leather is soaked in a liquid dye that has a consistency almost like water. The dye fully penetrates and colours the leather, but you can still see all of the pores and minor surface inconsistencies that you expect to see with leather.

In most American cars, the leather is "spray dyed", also called "pigmented" or "top coated", which is essentially spray-painting the leather with the appropriate colour of dye. The dye layer is quite thick and doesn't penetrate the leather, so it hides most of the leather pores and surface characteristics.

The nasty thing about spray-dyeing is that it's essentially like a layer of plastic on top of the leather, and it's very prone to cracking or even peeling where the leather flexes and creases. Even my dad's Lincoln Town Car uses spray-dyed leather, and it looks like crap after less than five years.

EDIT - I should mention that there's nothing inherently *wrong* with spray-dyeing - a lot of leather furniture is made using this process, and it can be very durable and attractive. But if it's done cheaply on a surface where you're going to be planting your butt for a few thousand hours, the results can be less than satisfactory.

 

I too tend to think that the leather is coated. My mother's furniture in her living in Germany is leather, polyurethane coated, but below the surface. No wonder it doesn't have a same touch as real leather. The minis interior has the same feel, no real grain, it doesn't breathe, and too consistent. More and more companies are coming out with what could have been substandard leather, coating it with a polyurethane and calling it leather. Good leather has that smell also, and what is lacking in a mini new or even moderately is "that" smell. I gone out and hand selected my hides and had my e36 seat redone. Even when they are taut you can still feel and smell pure leather. I believe the coating improves on consistency, color matching, price for the manu., and maybe even entry/exit wear. My friends Mercedes is leather, and the smell is wonderful, something I just can't smell with my "leather" interior.