We have two newer-model MINIs with the Black Punch Leather option: a 2007 MCS Coupe purchased in September of 07 with about 14,000 miles and a 2009 JCW Clubman, with just 4k miles, picked up in September of 2008.

The driver's seat on both cars is showing unusual wear on the edge of the seam where the front and side edges of the seatback come together, about 12 inches up from the seat. You can see where the coloring is wearing off, and the texture of the non-colored "hide" is showing.

Given that neither of these two cars has high mileage or usage (the Clubman is entered/exited maybe twice a day---at most) I am really disappointed with their wear performance. We've got a 2001 Suburban with 100k miles and leather seats that don't show any similar signs of wear from getting into/out of the seat.

Are there any other Punch Leather seat owners that are having a similar experience with wear to their driver's side seatbacks?

If yes, did the dealer/MINI address it under the warranty?

Thank you

 

Just out of curiosity - have you treated these seats with any chemicals? We recently switched out a seat from a lady that was on the shorter side (4'10") and she kept hitting the side bolster and never treated the hide.

 

Nope. No treatment so far. Didn't think it would be necessary for a car that is just under 6 months/ 4k miles from delivery.

I was at the dealer today, and they're looking at the car now. But I think there are a couple of differences between the leather in the older cars from the punch leather. One is that the older leather just feels "thicker"; and the other is that the design of the seat back is different. In the older car, the seam between the side of the seat and the face is at the outside edge of the seat; whereas in the newer car, there is actually a "compound joint" with an extra seam in the middle of the transition between the side and the front....which you naturally rub against when you get into the car every time. Plus the older seat has a smoother finish. Our 05 cabrio has almost 12,000 miles and no signs of wear on the seat where your butt brushes across the seamless portion when getting into the car.

Krut,
What do you recommend for treating the leather ?

Charlie

 

I have the same leather as you, and the leather is actually peeling... I'm going to the dealer on Friday.

However, the leather in the MINI seems much softer than any Chevy/Ford etc that I've ever been in... perhaps this is part of it's durability. I heard the Lounge Leather was even more of a pain to keep up with...

But mileage does not matter with leather care. Only time. It is not like your leather stops wearing when you shut the car off.

I use Leatherique Rejuvenator Oil and Pristine Clean... a little pricey, but the seats feel absolutely fantastic after application is complete... I couldn't bear to use Lexol... bad experiences with that. But to each his/her own.

The driver seat peeling, however, is peculiar. I'll definitely be raising a stink if they blame it on me or say, "It's part of the quirkiness of the MINI!" or "Leather wears with time."

 

MINI leather is of very poor quality. For the asking price, buy yourself a nice cow hide leather sofa for you living room. For the MINI, cloth or leatherette are much better choices.

 

Mine has been replaced once already top and bottom, both are worn again. Mini refuses to acknowledge an issue. Mini is willing to "goodwill" the bottom portion for one last time, that's not good enough. I want both replaced, after all I will now be responsible for the seats in the future if I take their offer. What if three months from now the seam comes apart? I'm liable, they are taking no risk.

The dealer will NOT go to bat for me either. Very disappointing. I will be speaking with Mini.

 

Crap quality, like many other things on a MINI.

My Clubman S is only about 4 months old and there is already peeling on the driver's door side of my leather/cloth seats. I'm talking to MINI corporate about this on Monday. I've had leather in my past two cars and never had peeling on either. Disappointing car in many ways, this MINI.

 

Im sorry to hear people are having a problem with the leather in their cars. From what I have seen, especially with the punch leather, it look much softer than what is in the older cars. I wondered what the source was...(goat, pig???). In fact, it almost looks like garment leather. I hope this is not the case! As soft as garment leather is, the life span of it is much shorter, as is goat and pig hides.
For comparison, I my '02 with over 83,000 miles on it (panther leather) has very little wear on the drivers side seat edge (very minor 'scuffing'), and no wear anywhere else.

 

HAHA! Man, if hear one more person use that line as an excuse for crappy quality I'm gonna go crazy.

 

Wow... you really have a love/hate relationship with your car. After reading all of your posts here on NAM its hard to tell if you like your car or not. It looks like you like driving it but the rest of the car is a real headache for you.

I would keep detailed notes on your MINI. A few more trips to the dealer and perhaps you can give it back to MINI as a lemon.

 

Quirkiness is the goofy layout of the center console or the dinner sized plate we call a speedo. Its not an excuse for poor build quality or using cheap materials in a "premium" compact car.

 

I have lounge leather, and I foolishly ASSumed that the outrageous $2k price meant that it was superior leather quality to the other stuff I was able to sample on the dealer's lot (punch & the leather/cloth seats). Ha. It's easily THE worst-quality leather I've ever had in any car. It doesn't even look like real leather when examined up close. It's frighteningly thin too. I don't expect it to hold up well at all over the long term. To add insult to injury, despite shelling out the huge price, you're still stuck with crappy thin vinyl shift & e-brake boots, even though leather ones exist as accessories. For $2k, they should be be included as part of the package - along with high-quaility, or at least DECENT quality, seat hides. Extremely disappointed. At least they look nice. At a distance.

 

Yep. At least I now know I'm not just crazy or something -- good to hear that others echo my disappointment. The thing that sucks is that there's nothing we can do about it except spend even MORE money and buy aftermarket seats that are made with quality materials.

onefish2 -- you're correct. This is a great car to drive, but it's made cheaply with cheap materials; inexcusable for a car that I paid $32,000 for. Now I just have to decide if it's worth it to me to keep a car that's cheaply made but incredibly fun to drive/looks cool. I know it seems like I complain a lot on here, but I'm not being unreasonable in the least and also like to find out if others are experiencing the same problems that I do. What I've found is that others do, and it's nice to know that and to have others that can relate.

 

Not to derail the thread too much more but I have the lounge leather seats on my JCW. I have had my car for 16 months and have but about 14,500 miles on it. My seats are holding up well. I do not think they are cheap and never noticed them to be cheap looking or feeling. I do agree that for a $2000 option MINI should have included leather shifter and e-brake handle boots. But then again the JCW should have come with the JCW suspension and the JCW aero kit.

This is a BMW product folks. Everything is priced expensively and is a la carte. MINI is a premium compact car. They should use premium materials.

 

Bingo. But they don't, for some reason.

My (4 month old ) leather is fine as long as I don't regularly rub against it (I do every single time I get in and out of the car because I'm not tall). Where my waist/backside rubs against the side bolsters during ingress/egress is exactly where the peeling has happened.

This same rubbing happened in my two previous cars, one of which I had for 10 years (Subaru Outback -- hardly what one would consider "premium"), but neither ever had a single peel in the leather.

 

I was told by my mini dealer to NOT order the car with leather as they were not holding up very well. I picked the black leatherette instead (I'd never choose leather actually).. car has 12k on it now and they look BRAND new...

the leather in my fathers volvo didnt hold up all that well either.. I think his cost him 1700!

Now.. 2000 Bucks for a leather interior is pretty damned cheap!! My good friend does restorations of fine automobiles (ferraris, bugattis, astons, maseratis etc) and his last project to properly recover the seats in a Jag cost 9k!

If you want top quality you have to pay for it. A Mini Cooper is not a fine luxury automobile, it is simply a sport compact.

Regardless I'm sorry for all those who ordered the leather to find it wasnt holding up with daily driver use.

 

I wish I had known before I got these seats. Ah, well. It's not a fully premium car, but my Outback was hardly premium when I bought it in '97, and like I said the leather help up perfectly for over 10 years. And the $32k that I paid for my MINI is hardly chump change!

 

I ordered my "07 with the leatherette seats and after 90k the seats are still in new condition(for sale in marketplace by the way). I've had the Tuscan beige seats for about 10k and despite already having 40k of wear from the previous owner(who smoked and had a large canine copilot) after some serious cleaning and treatment they were in surprisingly good shape.

 

Headlands : I appreciate your honesty and comments. Sometimes I feel the comments are only full of mini car dealers/salesmen which would be terrible, but you bring a sense of balance to the conversation. After reading this line, the leather seats I've been lusting after don't seem worth the 2000$ premium. I think I would opt for the leatherette or maybe the tuscan leather which seems more substantial although not as attractive.

 

The lounge leather in my 2007 MCS was just a micro-thin veneer of leather.
I faithfully applied MINI's own leather treatment several times. However, at the edge seam, it wore through to the green substrate in a few thousand miles. Patrick MINI replaced the leather skin at no charge, which is great, but it's the same thin veneer.

I ordered my 2009 Clubman with cloth upholstery, and immediately laid Ikea calf skin on the seats to protect them. I would have done that with the MCS, if I had realized how thin the leather was.

 

The Tapis Blue leather in my 02 exhibited a couple of sever, and strangely placed, wear points fairly early on. I never asked for a warranty replacement...I treated the rest of the leather routinely with a good cleaner and then a preservative and hit the worn spots with a color matching sharpie....

My 07 has Tuscan leather and it is wearing much better - at 3 years no significant problems. I now work in an environment where I'm sure to bring MORE dirt to the driver's seat but a quarterly cleaning and conditioner brings this light color leather to almost new looks. I duno if the difference is in the years or the color but my Tuscan B is holding up well.

 

I wonder if its a particular color/make of the leather thats causing issues? Is BMW USA and BMW canada having similar problems with their leather interiors?

 

I also have the Tuscan leather in my 3 year old 2007 MCS. It's looking excellent. I use some leather conditioner 3-4X/yr. I'm very sorry to hear the bad news about the Lounge leather and Punch leather options. I almost went with the red lounge leather.

 

Doubtful. BMW doesn't use "great" leather, but they don't use the crap that Mini is putting out. I had an '06 330i that had VASTLY better leather than my Mini, and currently have an '07 M Coupe, with a completely different type of leather, that's also light years ahead of the ultra-thin crapola that adorns my "lounge leather" seats. It's a travesty.

 

Let me start by saying I have quite a bit of experience in the area of Leather. For the past 20+ years I have made my living in the residential Home Furnishings industry. I have spent plenty time in Argentina, Mexico and many US Leather Manufacturing Facilities. Now Grant it, residential leather is not entirely that same as automotive. Same Animal(COW), different parts of the hide, different finishing processes.

Automotive Leathers are made to withstand High Internal car temps and heavy wear. They use bottom grain leather or the "split" as it is called. It is a completely pigmented, corrected and top coated leather(painted type finish) The sides and backs of the seats are Vinyl, you only get leather where you touch, seat top and the front of the seat back. this is typical of MOST cars. Premium Cars such as Lexus, Mercedes and such use more leather and they use better quality leathers. As for Mini, it is NOT the best nor is it the worst.

Residential Leather Furniture is usually Top Grain, Analine Dyed(dyed all the way through), tumbled more for softness, sometimes is unprotected for a soft natural look incorporating natural scars, bug bites and burns. I could go on, but on with the post...

I have Carbon Lounge Leather and have roughly 4500 miles on the car.
The leather IS a thick hide and is not showing a single bit of wear. The leather is softer than most all leather cars I have owned which is 10+. The Vinyl is a good match to the leather, just different grain (pattern), but a good overall color match. I am extremely pleased with the leather at this point and don't see any issues with it.

As for the Punch Leather. My brother in law has it in his Clubman S and like all punched leathers, they are thinner!! The reason for it is they have to use a thinner hide to punch the holes effectively. I have a Ford Expedition with the punched seats due to Heated AND Cooled seats (AC seats...are killer). The leather is thinner and will wear quicker.

Upon paying the 2000.00 for the Carbon Seats, I would do it again! I believe for the money, the leather will wear better than others offered. Leatherette(Plastic or Vinyl) seams will deteriorate more quickly and crack over time.

To address the OP issues, there could be a definite problem that happened in the LEATHER manufacturing process of the leather in your car if the finish is peeling. That is a supply issue, MINI doesn't Manufacture there own leather. So, hopefully a new set of seats are in order, that will definitely come from a new batch of leather hides and hopefully you wont have any issues.

Most leather defect issues I have seen over my 20+ years are from poor maintenance and harsh cleaning chemicals.

As for the comments about Crappy Quality, if you don't like your MINI, sell it and go buy something else that you will be happier with. Don't bring your constant degradation of a brand here. The number of happy customers of MINI outweighs the few bad apples that seem to just bash the brand.

Leather Cleaning Tip

• NEVER use harsh chemicals on your leather
• NEVER use anything with Bleach...it weakens the seams.

the BEST way to clean leather in your CAR....

• Dawn Dish Soap and HOT water- Deluted just like you would wash dishes.
• Most spots in leather are from Oils on your hands and hair, dawn cuts the grease.
• Use a Clean White Rag
• Scrub with the rag, NOT WITH A BRUSH
• Protect with a good leather protectant, wipe off ALL excess