Leather VS Cloth
I have owned several cars with leather seats in various climates. I used to live in Pittsburgh and I owned a car with leather seats. I lived in Corpus Christi, Texas and I owned a car with leather seats. I have three grown kids and I owned cars with leather seats while we were raising them. After all is said and done, nothing beats leather. In the cold climates, you need heated seats. In the warm climates when you are parked outside, you need a sunshade. Leather wears better than cloth and cleans much easier and is really very difficult to tear , puncture, or rip. If you can, go to used car lots and try to find 2 cars of the same model, one with leather and one with cloth, that are both several years old, and compare their seat interiors. You will see the deal with leather. As for baby seats and booster chairs, they now sell custom pads to use underneath these devices to protect the seats from baby. If you plan on keeping your Santa Fe Sport for only a few years, cloth may be a reasonable option but if you plan on keeping it until the warranty tanks ( 5 years/ 50,000 miles) or longer then, in my opinion, leather is the only way to go. The leather seating surfaces in my SFS 2.0T are absolutely beautiful and well-made and fitted. Love them. By the way, Toyota has seating surfaces in their top-of-the-line RAV-4 which they call SOFTEX, which is a form of vinyl. Toyota no longer offers leather in an attempt to maximize their profits. Plastic cost less than leather. Trickery for the unsuspecting modern consumer. I remember my Dad's old Chevy with cracked vinyl seats. As for me, it is leather or nothing at all. ( heh-heh-heh). Stole that from Mercedes Benz
