Is Artico as good as leather..?

[television]

can you imagine

Yes, very well

 

[John Laidlaw]

Do you have a his and hers set John

thats me on the right Malcolm!

 

[television]

thats me on the right Malcolm!

Each to their own and very nice too John is it ???

 

[C350Carl]

thats me on the right Malcolm!

If that's you on the right John, then hubba hubba hubba

 

[John Laidlaw]

I wish Carl I could amuse myself forever then!

 

[Bycardybay]

At the risk of being accused of bumping an old thread (though it appears to have taken an interesting side step recently ), this has been a question I've posed a handful of Merc sales execs recently. And the consensus, surprisingly has been ... whatever the car they are trying to sell me has, that's the best upholstery. Good to actually read other's unbiased thoughts in here.

16 years ago I worked in a Mazda dealership. MX5's had full leather trim as an option, supposedly factory fitted. You can imagine the length of time a new order could take from the factory for a car specced up (usually leather, a hard top and an alarm were a good combo). We told customer's we could get the seats re-trimmed, for the same price, at Bridge of Weir Leather which was only 20 minutes drive away. As a bonus, we'd get the door panels trimmed too, and, we could offer pretty much any colour the customer wanted. I've a feeling it was about £15-1600 as an option, crazy for a 2 door drop top but, 2 out of 3 went for it. Cost us about £800 plus Her Majesty's bit.

My current car has the dreaded Artico/cloth combination. I say dreaded. When I bought it at 60K, 20 months ago, there was a tear on the drivers seat. I was told it would be replaced as a warranty claim and all was well. Car off the road for a few days, replacement courtesy car, I'm happy. By August last year, after just 8 months, there was another tear on the drivers seat. I'd done about 18K with it. Supplying dealer were to ask Mercedes about it. On and on it dragged until my car was in for it's next service in January. This time, I demanded some resolution. I got nowhere. Finally, having made all sorts of noises, I was advised in mid May that the seat wasn't replaced, merely repaired (makes sense why it took 5 days) and that it was down to me and my misuse

I'm now looking at both an SE & an SE Executive, one with Artico, the other with leather. Truth to tell, I can't really sense much difference, though maybe would notice living with it day in, day out. My concern is, will I end up with problems with the Artico .... and, can I justify the extra £2K for a car with 1" bigger wheels, full leather and 6000 miles more. Decisions, decisions, but I do feel a bit more comforted having read this thread that Artico is hard wearing.

Douglas

 

[Alfinrdg]

Artico is Vinyl upholstery by another name. Leathercloth, Naugahyde and Ambla are other names that have been given to Vinyl upholstery over the years. You’ll still find vinyl in a modern cars, covering door trims, the bits of the seats that you don’t sit on and often plenty more. if your car does without air conditioning, your limbs will be stickily adhering to vinyl whenever the cabin gets hot. That doesn’t happen with cloth or fabric trim, which after two decades of sill-to-sill vinyl in the 1950s and 1960s, became a highly desired option. Leather, meanwhile, has long been the preserve of high-end cars, because their air conditioning prevented your beshorted legs from gumming themselves to the upholstery.

But some bright spark at Mercedes long ago realised that in an air-conditioned cabin, the sweaty drawback of man-made vinyl would surface as rarely as it does in a similarly chilled interior upholstered in cowhide.

Which is how what Mercedes calls Artico man-made leather has come about, not only as a material with which to upholster the bits of the seats that you don’t sit on, but also the entire facings for some models.

No big deal you might think, especially as Artico really does look and feel as if it had previously encased a field-chomping quadruped.

But at one time, the idea of selling a luxury model like a Mercedes with vinyl seats would have seemed preposterous, unless it was about to embark on a half-million mile duty cycle as a taxi.

 

[Mazi]

Another Merc cost cutting exercise.
Hate it. Better than cloth I suppose and many dont know the difference as
its often sold as "Artico Leather" by used car dealers.

 

[malcolm E53 AMG]

I wonder how long it took to come up with the name Artico does it have a meaning or was it conceived to avoid using the word plastic or equivalent?

The main problem with this material is that it can split and judging by comments on here is serviceable in most cases but when it does split MB can be very parsimonious about repairs even on relatively new vehicles so my view is buy with leather

 

[geraldrobins]

Another Merc cost cutting exercise.
Hate it. Better than cloth I suppose and many dont know the difference as
its often sold as "Artico Leather" by used car dealers.

Personally I would prefer cloth to Artico, as it seems more hard wearing and is cooler in the summer, hence the demise of vinyl in the 70s and 80s.
The disadvantage of cloth to leather or vinyl is that you cant wipe it down so easily.
Real leather would be my preference.

 

[LostKiwi]

Another Merc cost cutting exercise.
Hate it. Better than cloth I suppose and many dont know the difference as
its often sold as "Artico Leather" by used car dealers.

Better than cloth? MB use extremely hard wearing cloth in their cars and in some climates cloth makes a lot more sense than either leather or artico. When I specced my Smart Roadster I specifically didn't want leather as with the car parked roof down on a Summers day third degree burns to the legs when getting back in didn't appeal.

My Smart has done 150k miles and the seats are only now showing signs of wear. Our 210 has over 120k and has no signs of wear at all on the seats. The 129 with 130k with leather on the other hand does have signs of wear on the drivers side bolster.

 

[EmilysDad]

I'm on my phone so can't do a link ....
There's a thread somewhere with pictures of my seat that I had repaired due to crappy Artico splitting.

 

[benzw205]

hello, any idea how to know if benz seats are fake or real leather ?!

 

[A.J.]

hello, any idea how to know if benz seats are fake or real leather ?!

Artico is harder than leather and it don't smell of leather either

 

[malcolm E53 AMG]

Use the VIN to look up the build list - worth doing with any car you are buying/have

 

[Rob7seven]

Use the VIN to look up the build list - worth doing with any car you are buying/have

My MB dealer gave me the build list with my car, I had asked for it during discussions, but do any other dealers do this without being asked? There were a few surprises on the list. Full leather was standard spec for a 2020 C300, but the list tells me I was charged £662.50 extra for it. The only other charged extras were metallic paint and a hefty £1895.83 for Premium pack II, everything else standard. None of this bothered me, as I was a cash buyer with no trade-in, and had negotiated a sizeable discount, so I didn't query any of it.

On Artico/leather/nappa, I've had all three on various cars, light grey nappa in my CLK was lovely, nice feel and very comfortable, my wife used to swoon as she slid into it, so if I'd been a bit younger and single, it would have been a good pulling wagon, though it was an expensive extra. Next came a C250 coupé, "Artico leather" and suede like cloth, at least I think it was, again comfy and no problems. That was replaced by an all leather E250, again no problems with it, though the car didn't really grab me at all so I didn't keep it long, moneywise my most costly motoring experience. I was an MB defector for the nest three years, a leather/alcantara Alfa Giulia, joy on wheels, a truly lovely thing in every way, though noticeably not quite MB quality, after which I returned to MB respectability for the C300.

 

[Srdl]

hello, any idea how to know if benz seats are fake or real leather ?!

Put the VIN in here:

Mercedes VIN Decoder | Decode Your Mercedes-Benz VIN

Want to know the specifications of your Mercedes? No problem! Our free Mercedes VIN decoder retrieves detailed information about your Mercedes-Benz vehicle.

www.lastvin.com

 

[Rob7seven]

Put the VIN in here:

Mercedes VIN Decoder | Decode Your Mercedes-Benz VIN

Want to know the specifications of your Mercedes? No problem! Our free Mercedes VIN decoder retrieves detailed information about your Mercedes-Benz vehicle.

www.lastvin.com

Didn't work on mine, I was told too new and not been added to the database. That's not really surprising I guess, but a friend with an early 2019 C Class tried, and he got the same result, he got "too new" as well, just like I did. If your car is relatively recent, surely any Mercedes dealer should be able to track a build sheet for you? It would only take them a few taps on their keyboard.

 

[A.J.]

Didn't work on mine, I was told too new and not been added to the database. That's not really surprising I guess, but a friend with an early 2019 C Class tried, and he got the same result, he got "too new" as well, just like I did. If your car is relatively recent, surely any Mercedes dealer should be able to track a build sheet for you? It would only take them a few taps on their keyboard.

I wonder whether it's just that VIN checker or whether 'Too new' is the problem. Try this one https://www.lastvin.com/

 

[Rob7seven]

I wonder whether it's just that VIN checker or whether 'Too new' is the problem. Try this one https://www.lastvin.com/

Just tried it, and got exactly the same result, "too new".

On the "has my car got Artico or leather" question, I wouldn't have thought it was that difficult to tell the difference. Artico has a very regular pattern of tiny pinpricks, exactly the same over the whole car, whereas leather being a natural material is more varied. Also if you scrape fairly hard with a fingernail, Artico being plastic, is slightly springy and rubbery to the touch, whereas leather isn't.



This is a close-up of the side bolster on an MB seat, nobody ever saw a texture like that on a genuine leather one. I'm not knocking Artico, I had it on my C250 Coupé with cloth centre insert, described by the Dealer as "Artico leather" and it was fine, but surely no-one could ever confuse it with genuine leather, the real thing. I enlarged a photo from another website for this, the poster was complaining about the sit-on bit going all baggy, it's non-rigid plastic, so you'd expect that. I wouldn't have thought that was something that could happen with a leather seat