MY 2023 Corolla Excel - Leather seats

[Chainbreaker]

As title says, are the seats in the excel real leather? All the toyota brochures/specs suggest it is but now I've got mines, I'm not sure. They look and feel like leather, but it doesn't smell like leather. Wondering if its fake leather like bmw/mercedes use.

Can anyone on here shine some light on this? Would be good to know, plus it means they can be cleaned with the correct products.

[Bper]

Hi Adam , have a read of this previous post on the seats. Hope this helps.

https://www.toyotaownersclub.com/forums/topic/205701-leather-or-not/

 

[Louie]

Last time I heard a lot of stuff in the Corrolla is made out of recycled material. I cannot remember where but I recall reading that part of the  Excell  seat covering plus interior is  made out of recycled wallpaper. Now I acquired a new 2l Excel Hybrid last week and the seats do look odd and don't have a leather smell to them at all and mine have acquired after one week light use strange folds and creases in the seat totally unlike leather in fact i don't think its even faux leather.

I know that car manufacturers have removed the new car smell as it is considered to be toxic so i don't know what is going on here.

Please see enclosed Image.

[simond64]

9 hours ago, Louie said:

Last time I heard a lot of stuff in the Corrolla is made out of recycled material. I cannot remember where but I recall reading that part of the  Excell  seat covering plus interior is  made out of recycled wallpaper. Now I acquired a new 2l Excel Hybrid last week and the seats do look odd and don't have a leather smell to them at all and mine have acquired after one week light use strange folds and creases in the seat totally unlike leather in fact i don't think its even faux leather.

I know that car manufacturers have removed the new car smell as it is considered to be toxic so i don't know what is going on here.

Please see enclosed Image.

I have my23 2.0 TS Excel, the photo you show has ballooning add creases in the seat and bolster, same happened to mine, I had the seat cover replaced but it just did the same after a few days, poor design or materials probably but unacceptable given the price paid

[Cyker]

Never understood the obsession with leather; Give me a cloth seat any day of the week! Doesn't burn your bum in summer or freeze it in winter, and grips you so you don't slide around in the seat!

(To be fair, my brother desperately wanted leather seats in his car, but he has children and I can understand in that case as they'd be much easier to clean when e.g. it has been introduced to most of an ice cream or half-eaten fruit pastilles...    )

Supposedly Toyota uses something called SofTex on their higher end models, which is still basically plastic-based, but supposedly is more hard wearing than leather and presumably better than the 'vegan leather'  in our lower end models.

I do think car manufacturers have missed an opportunity - Instead of being obsessed with leather to the point of calling plastic stupid things like 'vegan leather', they could engineer a far better fabric with the comfort and temperature damping of say alcantara with the easy cleaning of leather and the robustness, grip and breathability of a cloth seat, and just give it a stupid marketing name like Space Fabric or Ultra Cover or Diamond Stealth Ultra Fusion Atom Power Mk3 Flextanium or something like that. (Although that last one's probably been taken by Gilette already)

 

 

[mpm235]

18 hours ago, Louie said:

Last time I heard a lot of stuff in the Corrolla is made out of recycled material. I cannot remember where but I recall reading that part of the  Excell  seat covering plus interior is  made out of recycled wallpaper. Now I acquired a new 2l Excel Hybrid last week and the seats do look odd and don't have a leather smell to them at all and mine have acquired after one week light use strange folds and creases in the seat totally unlike leather in fact i don't think its even faux leather.

I know that car manufacturers have removed the new car smell as it is considered to be toxic so i don't know what is going on here.

Please see enclosed Image.

Where the eck do you get recycled wallpaper from? 

[Bper]

I think leather seats look smart in a car but do have draw backs especially as they get older. Many moons ago I was doing some work at jack Barclays in London and they allowed us to sit in the Rolls Royces in the basement. The leather smell was actually nauseous after a while and I often wondered how either a chauffeur or owner in the back could put up with the overwhelming smell.

The nearest I get to leather seats today is our sofa.

[TonyHSD]

After I have tried many Toyota cars and many other makes and models I have come into conclusion that at least to me the best ever car seat materials are alcantara with combination of some sort of real or synthetic leather. 
An example of later cars are Yaris GR4 - the best seats from all new Toyota, Yaris cross GR sport. , including my old Auris hybrid.
This material is so good, soft , comfortable, not too gripping but same time keeps in place well, wearing is amazing, ageing great, cleaning super easy , just wipe away, never need to wet vacuum. There is no better material for car seats and all of that comes from the same factory from Italy and here is the story. 

 

[mpm235]

21 hours ago, Cyker said:

Never understood the obsession with leather; Give me a cloth seat any day of the week! Doesn't burn your bum in summer or freeze it in winter, and grips you so you don't slide around in the seat!

(To be fair, my brother desperately wanted leather seats in his car, but he has children and I can understand in that case as they'd be much easier to clean when e.g. it has been introduced to most of an ice cream or half-eaten fruit pastilles...    )

Supposedly Toyota uses something called SofTex on their higher end models, which is still basically plastic-based, but supposedly is more hard wearing than leather and presumably better than the 'vegan leather'  in our lower end models.

I do think car manufacturers have missed an opportunity - Instead of being obsessed with leather to the point of calling plastic stupid things like 'vegan leather', they could engineer a far better fabric with the comfort and temperature damping of say alcantara with the easy cleaning of leather and the robustness, grip and breathability of a cloth seat, and just give it a stupid marketing name like Space Fabric or Ultra Cover or Diamond Stealth Ultra Fusion Atom Power Mk3 Flextanium or something like that. (Although that last one's probably been taken by Gilette already)

 

 

I've often thought Denim would be good for car seats, could have it in any colour, comfy and hardwearing, not too expensive.

[Bper]

29 minutes ago, mpm235 said:

I've often thought Denim would be good for car seats, could have it in any colour, comfy and hardwearing, not too expensive.

Good idea but would the seats be button or zip fastened 

[Cyker]

2 hours ago, mpm235 said:

I've often thought Denim would be good for car seats, could have it in any colour, comfy and hardwearing, not too expensive.

I used to think that, but judging by the number of people walking around with holes and rips in their jeans these days, maybe it's not as tough as we thought!   

[Chainbreaker]

5 hours ago, TonyHSD said:

After I have tried many Toyota cars and many other makes and models I have come into conclusion that at least to me the best ever car seat materials are alcantara with combination of some sort of real or synthetic leather. 
An example of later cars are Yaris GR4 - the best seats from all new Toyota, Yaris cross GR sport. , including my old Auris hybrid.
This material is so good, soft , comfortable, not too gripping but same time keeps in place well, wearing is amazing, ageing great, cleaning super easy , just wipe away, never need to wet vacuum. There is no better material for car seats and all of that comes from the same factory from Italy and here is the story. 

 

Alcantara is lovely when new, but it is notorious for getting quite grubby and wearing quite quickly. 

[Louie]

Dealer not remotely interested. I will wait till it all falls apart which should not be long now and then buy some stupid looking covers from Amazon 🙄

[simond64]

Louie, that’s unacceptable, it’s a warranty claim however, after they replaced the seat cover it ballooned again so more like a design fault but yes Toyota not interested once you bought the car, not like it’s cheap either

[Guest]

On 12/11/2023 at 10:25 PM, Chainbreaker said:

plus it means they can be cleaned with the correct products

Most good car leather cleaners are 'leather and vinyl', so you're usually safe to use them on it regardless if it's real or fake or anything in between. I recommend that Turtle Wax Luxe Leather stuff. I use it on my Avensis door / centre console trim even though that's 99% fake leather or vinyl. 

10 hours ago, Louie said:

Dealer not remotely interested. I will wait till it all falls apart which should not be long now and then buy some stupid looking covers from Amazon 🙄

Don't give up. They told me they wouldn't fix my climate control screen cracking as 'it looked like clear damage'.  I put together a print out of screenshots from a lot of 2015-2018 Avensis (same model as mine) with the same issue at varying crack levels to prove that it was a design defect present on other cars and NOT damage caused by me. 

Do the same - check out some Corolla's on AutoTrader, filter 2019 onwards for the new shape. Filter by Excel (and other models with leather if anybody here knows which ones have it).  Collect a screenshot of as many as you can.

Then, in your case state that because it's a reasonable (if not shot) presumption to expect a new car to last say.. 10 years (obviously longer) that in under 3 years (especially IN warranty) it is unacceptable that even with heavy driving use that they are in the current state.  - what's your mileage? if low, that helps your case.  

Tell them that you bought a Toyota because of reliability and robustness. You bought an Excel for higher quality / better comfort with the leather and that this falls short of your expectations from the brand and the car. That emotional side will sometimes resonate with customer service types as a justification to fix or put under 'good will'. 

This worked in my case. PM me if you want some help putting it together 🙂 happy to help. There is plenty of hope yet. 

Message Toyota UK on Facebook and get a case made too, they will usually straighten out dealerships that don't want to know 

[TonyHSD]

From the new Corolla GR sport has nicer seats, design and then excel, full fake leather seats has this balloon tendency, otherwise they are nice and comfy. The first 2019 excel we’re having really good ones, but then their bolsters get mashed , perhaps again GR sport wins. 

[simond64]

8 minutes ago, TonyHSD said:

From the new Corolla GR sport has nicer seats, design and then excel, full fake leather seats has this balloon tendency, otherwise they are nice and comfy. The first 2019 excel we’re having really good ones, but then their bolsters get mashed , perhaps again GR sport wins. 

I didn’t but the Excel for the leather seats, it was due to them moving the HUD from the GR Sport and also Excel has adaptive headlights, if those 2 features were available on the GRSport I would’ve gone for that

[TonyHSD]

2 hours ago, simond64 said:

I didn’t but the Excel for the leather seats, it was due to them moving the HUD from the GR Sport and also Excel has adaptive headlights, if those 2 features were available on the GRSport I would’ve gone for that

Agreed, I see European cats are better spec with all goodies in one trim 👌 

[simond64]

13 minutes ago, TonyHSD said:

Agreed, I see European cats are better spec with all goodies in one trim 👌 

I noticed the new CHR has got front cross traffic alert, a digital rear view mirror, 360 panaromic view on infotainment screen and probably heated steering wheel, none of this is available on the 2024 Corollas. FCTA uses lateral radar so don’t think this years corollas could be upgraded, RCTA has those radars in the rear side bumpers. 
safety sense 3.0 seems to have these type of extras inconsistently on different models, you’d think they would be an option if not standard. 

[Chainbreaker]

46 minutes ago, TonyHSD said:

Agreed, I see European cats are better spec with all goodies in one trim 👌 

Didn't realise you could spec your own cat in Europe! Purrfect!

[Chainbreaker]

3 hours ago, TonyHSD said:

From the new Corolla GR sport has nicer seats, design and then excel, full fake leather seats has this balloon tendency, otherwise they are nice and comfy. The first 2019 excel we’re having really good ones, but then their bolsters get mashed , perhaps again GR sport wins. 

I'm sure Gr sport seats are the exact same as the excel, except the centre section is cloth instead of leather and has red instead of white stitching? 

When I was looking for my excel I was thinking of a GR sport, decided against it as you get a lot more with the excel for not that much more money compared to the GR.

Plus I ended up thinking the GR badging looked a bit naff, bit like these people that stick M power badges to their BMW 318d. But that's just my opinion of course.

[Kieranm9091]

1 hour ago, simond64 said:

I noticed the new CHR has got front cross traffic alert, a digital rear view mirror, 360 panaromic view on infotainment screen and probably heated steering wheel, none of this is available on the 2024 Corollas. FCTA uses lateral radar so don’t think this years corollas could be upgraded, RCTA has those radars in the rear side bumpers. 
safety sense 3.0 seems to have these type of extras inconsistently on different models, you’d think they would be an option if not standard. 

These will probably come with all new Corolla, I’d say i’d like to see in 2025

[Joe 90]

I am looking to buy a TS Excel grade but having looked at about 40 or more ads for MY23 Excel Corollas with say 8000 miles plus on the clock on the AA site and Autotrader sites and I see every one has ballooning problem and creased bolsters. This means it is a manufacturing defect. Design and GR Sport cars are unaffected.

It would suggest the soft filling in the seats is flexing more than the coverings can cope with and thus they are left stretched beyond their material fail points. 
Unless one of the components is changed the problem will just recur and get worse with use. I am surprised not to be able to find more evidence of customer feedback on this issue.

[simond64]

2 hours ago, Joe 90 said:

I am looking to buy a TS Excel grade but having looked at about 40 or more ads for MY23 Excel Corollas with say 8000 miles plus on the clock on the AA site and Autotrader sites and I see every one has ballooning problem and creased bolsters. This means it is a manufacturing defect. Design and GR Sport cars are unaffected.

It would suggest the soft filling in the seats is flexing more than the coverings can cope with and thus they are left stretched beyond their material fail points. 
Unless one of the components is changed the problem will just recur and get worse with use. I am surprised not to be able to find more evidence of customer feedback on this issue.

I agree it’s a manufacturing defect but we need Toyota to acknowledge that and fix it. My dealer changed the seat cover and within days I had ballooning and creasing again so it needs action on other components to fix it, previous year models don’t seem to have this issue so they changed something on my23 for this to occur. 

[TonyHSD]

Agreed, I believe it’s from the fake leather used and not from the padding itself underneath. All seats look really bad even on a cars with less than 2000 miles. Definitely it’s the leatherette materials to blame.