Kids and cloth or kids and leather

[James Gould]

that obvious (except, apparently, to me!)  -  so, cloth is getting the vote so far....I thought it would...

[Rolfe]

I think the resilience of cloth is often underestimated.

My first Fiesta's seats got in an awful mess - even through velour seat covers.  The cat was sick on the passenger seat several times, and the driver's seat - well you could hardly see the colour for pony scurf.  I had a habit of riding without a saddle (saved cleaning the saddle), then getting in the car with my jeans and jacket absolutely filthy.

I tried to clean the seats with some aerosol foam stuff I bought in a car accesories shop, but it wasn't a great success.  In fact it might have made it worse.  I have to say, they were fairly indescribable.

Then I decided to have a car valet done.  The guy came to my house and gave it a real going over, cleaned the engine, the entire works.  He steam-cleaned those seats, and frankly I've never seen anything like it.  It was as if he'd pressed the reset button.  They were like new.  It wasn't even all that expensive.  I have to say, if these seats could recover like that from that mess, I'd have no worries about letting children loose on them.

Rolfe.

[James Gould]

Absolutely - once the leather sags and is creased and tired, can't get it back as easily as can with cloth - I know leather can increase in character as it ages but lots of people say Golf leather ain't great - I think cloth makes sense

[Len]

The answer to this is very simple! Train your kids to be careful and not make a mess!

Yes it can be done if you teach children properly!

[James Gould]

Hi, child psychology professor,
my kids are very well behaved and respectful but they are kids - kids and their toys, bags etc etc, getting in and out of the car....it's called family use and that kind of use is going to be more telling than a single guy with no kids using the car - what's going to look more used after a while - an exec car driven only by a company director or a car used by family with kids?

[dubber36]

Our kids are very good in our cars, and even though the interiors are showing signs of a bit more wear than pampered cars, they are still alot cleaner than the average motor out there.

I just accept that while are kids are still small, our cars wont be as clean as I would like. However, the time will come when they wont travel everywhere with us, and I'll be able to look after my car like I used to.

[Exonian]

I always keep an old £1k runabout for ferrying kids about and supermarket trips etc.
I save the Golf for best.

[JellyCat]

The cloth in the MK5 GTI is excellent and from what I've found kid proof, even after 4 years of spills from everything including baby milk left on over June\July in a long term car partk (hols). Everything wipes off fine, or comes out very easy with carpet cleaner machine (we've got a VAX) and that's cleaned the seats, even ground in chocolate after about a month. Mud \ water \ snow etc etc from walks in the lakes all comes out fine no probs. We've got leather in another car and that's not done as well (and in summer months can burn legs etc if car left out on a very hot day). Also IMO cloth looked better, and also cornering etc the cloth seats holds you better.

In summary cloth seats after 4 years of serious use, no stains, pulls or problems of any kind.  Cloth was a no brainer for out Mk6 order. You can then use the cash saved for other options (check out sunroof if you've got kids and the RCD510 = funky screen)

[James Gould]

Thanks, JC, very helpful - would you be happy with rear side airbags with kids - critics point out that they can explode into kids dangerously...?

[p3asa]

With all due respect James, does it really matter what others think about airbags and their kids. It is your kids, why judge their safety on forum members say so.
I would do anything for my 3 kids but I certainly wouldn't base their safety on things stated in here. If you are so concerned and in such a dilemma have a look at the evidence both for and against and then make your mind up.

I'm puzzled to how you decide what clothes to wear in the morning