My car visited the dealer as some of the leather (fake?) has worn away from the drivers seat base.

The dealer knocked it back for warranty repair quote "fair wear and tear". Car is under 2 years old and 8K miles.

I directly emailed the dealer manager who having viewed the pictures of the leather wear area (not a large Area) he was of the same opinion. His experience is that skoda will not honour any repairs to the leather as he knows the will cite "fair wear and tear". I did say if this were cloth upholstery we would not be having this discussion.

The dealer manager has agreed to get the seat repaired for me at a convenient date. A very good gesture indeed.

Worrying though that the leather doesn't appear robust.

Can you prove some pictures?

I'm actually waiting on my dealer to get back to me regarding an issue with my leather seats. The parcel shelf has rubbed on the leather of the back seat and has made two marks in it. They wouldn't commit if this would be covered under warranty or not, only saying can you imagine the cost of the replacement piece of leather, as though that was my problem, and that they would have to refer it to skoda warranty and they may want to investigate/view the car.

So here I wait for a call from them with an update!

Picture attached.

Small area of approx 3 inch length. Won't get any better or fix itself hence the request to dealer. Fair wear and tear is very questionable. This would not have occurred on a cloth interior car.

Attached

Annoying, but good luck with that - I can't see them sorting that but happy to be proved wrong. 

4k a year - lots of short journeys?

 

More frequent getting in and out and how you get in and out will affect the wear rate. Looks like fair wear and tear to me.

You are lucky if you get this replaced under warranty. Looks like wear and tear plain and simple. Its not like leather broke or stitches got unstitched.

4k a year - lots of short journeys?

More frequent getting in and out and how you get in and out will affect the wear rate. Looks like fair wear and tear to me.

No, not as many short journeys as most I just don't use the car a my primary car.

And last time I looked I access and egress the car like any other normal person. Its not as if I dive in.

Dealer is providing a leather specialist to fix it gratis. I'm pretty sure the specialist will say 'that ain't leather mate'

Things wear out granted. A cloth seat would not show such wear in such a short space of time unless maybe the driver was wearing a suit of armour everytime they got in and out.

If you don't ask you don't get.

Dealer is providing a leather specialist to fix it gratis. 

 

Fair enough, result!

Looking at the picture it is a very small area and you can get specialists to effectively repair them using spray.

 

I am suprised dealer is fixing it, thumbs up that they are though.

A cloth seat would not show such wear in such a short space of time

That's one reason I avoided Skoda's cheap leather. Their cloth looks much more hard wearing.

That's one reason I avoided Skoda's cheap leather. Their cloth looks much more hard wearing.

Agreed the leather is cheap but I could not do a spartan spec octavia with the cloth unfortunately.

I cant understand why some of yo are saying its fair wear and tear???

 

Ive had cars in the past with leather that have done galactic miles and been quite old that havent wore like that.

Its not about the mileage, often spot defects like that can be caused by people wearing "metal pants" or keys/tools/whatever hanging on the side of their pants. 

Whatever opinions are it's getting fixed.

Thought I would share this to help any other owners with same 'issue' and have been told it's fair wear and tear.

The root cause of this may have well been the mechanics jumping in and out of the car owing to its frequency of dealer visits due to other stuff faling apart. Maybe I should question the dealer with regards to how their staff access and egress a car (correctly) lol.

I cant understand why some of yo are saying its fair wear and tear???

Ive had cars in the past with leather that have done galactic miles and been quite old that havent wore like that.

Agreed.

Maybe those who are quick to comment this is a fair wear and tear and had a similar issue on a relatively lightly used car they would change there opinion.

I cant understand why some of yo are saying its fair wear and tear???

 

Ive had cars in the past with leather that have done galactic miles and been quite old that havent wore like that.

Maybe your cars had better quality leather.

Maybe your cars had better quality leather.

 

Not really but then I dont really know about leather quality?

 

The leather in a car should not wear in a car that is two years old no matter what the quality is. It should be fit for purpose and if its showing this damage in such a short length of time then surely its not fit for purpose?

The pleather on the mk3 has been criticised by others for premature stretching.

Personally I am not keen on leather in a car for the really hot weather we can get here, doubly so for pleather.

Having said that I'm not sure the cloth in the mk3 is quite the standard of the mk2 that wore really well

The pleather on the mk3 has been criticised by others for premature stretching.

Personally I am not keen on leather in a car for the really hot weather we can get here, doubly so for pleather.

Having said that I'm not sure the cloth in the mk3 is quite the standard of the mk2 that wore really well

I agree that this kind of leather is poor quality. But, I prefer leather as it cleans up well after spillages from the children. Same in the house, a leather sofa cleans up easier than a cloth sofa.

It's just a pity skoda appear to have chosen a very poor leather on there higher spec models. Ludicrous. Its not lasting now, so I suspect it won't last long at all. Why pay a premium for this over the base models.

I understand what you are saying, good quality leather is great and I also have leather lounge suites.

My point of view is from having sat on leather in a car parked in the sun on a 40+ C day, wearing shorts

So in my car I prefer fabric seats, and I would also resent paying good money for fake leather that is probably cheaper than the fabric anyway.

Suppose we should be grateful that velour has not come back into fashion (yet).

 

Lots of people in Australia do have leather optioned cars and lots of people have black cars, many with both! My pragmatic side has particular difficulty understanding the latter for our climate.

 

Having said all that my daughter's 'new' 2008 mk5 gti Golf has 'leather' seats and they seem to have worn well. I didn't have time (or inclination) to examine them closely enough to determine if the leather was real or not.

Edited 17 June, 201610 yr by Gerrycan

I thibk I made the error of judgment by purchasing what I thought was a premium spec octavia in the elegance.

I mistakenly presumed I was paying more for quality and gadgets.