[Rollaming]

Rollaming, the care for the leather that MB uses in their cars today (other than Designo leather) is minimal. MB coats their standard leather material with something that makes it virtually indestructible. It would take a decade in direct sun before it cracks, it's that tough!

Didn't know that but not surprised, but I guess the point is the leather will probably last nicely as long as I own the car. Only if the leather price could be lowered, and I wish the remote window can be excluded and bring the price down.

 

[Yoshi]

IMHO, the plain dashboard is pretty unbecoming in even a $30k car. It doesn't have the texture and feel of the higher quality(?) dashboards in comparably priced BMWs and/or Audis. The interior package that includes MB-Tex on the dashboard is the primary reason I'd choose leather. Otherwise the Dinamica is great.

Just my $.02,
-Eric

agree with your statement that the dash and door looks nice with the stitching/mb tex. Except in the case of the ash colorered leather option. . It turns all the trim pieces ash colored except the top black mb tex portion. The brown leather option or ash mb tex doesnt do this and keeps the other door trim/dash pieces black which looks way nicer.

In my opinion the ash/beige mb tex options help with the interior not looking as cheap since it breaks up the dash a bit.

 

[Yoshi]

For those wanting leather & solid residual, do the leather-interior conversion kit (professionally) & then throw-back'on the MB-Tex bits if/when putting the CLA up for sale. It'd be like putting a brand-new interior in the marketplace!

Hey was the professionally a dig at me? Well if that's the case I consider myself a professional I have done 3 converstions with katzkin leather. Two on my own cars and I did a friend a BIG favor once. It did take me the whole entire weekend and is quite a lot of work to get it looking perfectly. Another reason why it took so long was I took extra care in removing every single bolt and nut and removing the all the seats to ensure I didnt scratch anything. this is another reason why I trust myself over a installer if I can do it myself. Anyways here are some pics below of my current ride with the Katzkin leather interior. It has held up perfectly and looks 100000x times better than my friends oem leather which is now cracking and basically makes his car look like crap.

It's actually not that hard to do but will make all your fingers and hands hurt. The leather is extremely tight and takes quite a bit of work to make it fit properly. I must admit it does feel quite a bit nicer than the MB tex so I'll be taking a bit of a step backwards. But the mb tex is nice enough so I will most likely stay with it.

 

[Airmousam]

I have both tex and leather in my 2 mercedes. The tex in my 2010 E looks perfect and my 99 SLK with leather also looks very good for its age. i prefer the leather but am happy enough with the tex. I had leather on my CLA build before I cancelled, and thought long and hard about it. Have told no one about the tex in my E and no one has ever noticed.......

 

[CLAgirl]

Just my $.02, but $1,500 spread out over the life of a loan is like $20-25/month, totally worth it for the feel of real leather and the MBtex dash (way better than the cheapy plastic or whatever it is). It's like any of the other options, spread it out over your loan and don't look at it as a large chunk of money upfront. IMO if you can't afford $20 more bucks a month, then you probably shouldn't be buying a Mercedes.

That is a slippery slope. If you use that logic for all options, you'll end up with a 46k car rather than a 34k car... Big difference.

 

[CLA Hubby]

CLA Hubby, can't wait to see your wife's Christmas gift! So, how much did your CLA come to (in Euros)? I heard they can get as high as EUD 55.000.

Being associated with the US Military here in Germany, the CLA I bought is US spec and I paid dollar, not euros. The German spec I drove was fairly plain with MM package, sports package, but with cloth manual seats and it was stickered at 45k euros. Mine is optioned out and is stickered a little more than 45k, but in dollars, not in euros. My CLA, for sale on the German economy, would be the 55k euros. Europeans pay much higher prices than us Americans.

 

[Armchair Bronco]

This:

 

[Yoshi]

That is a slippery slope. If you use that logic for all options, you'll end up with a 46k car rather than a 34k car... Big difference.

haha very good point. Its not if 1500 is too much money but some people want to stay around 35k like myself. So then it's about choosing your options. Would you rather have leather or the pano roof? or the bixenon lights with 18 inch wheels.

$25 a month for 5 years is still $1500. You can basically say that about anything you buy .. if you break it down over 5 years its only $xxx amount a month. before you know it you are paying several hundred dollars/month to things you may or may not need. Of course everyone is in different situations financially. For me personally I could never imagine a car payment/car loan. I have a pretty conservative upbringing and it's something that's hard for me to change. If I can't pay for it in cash then I feel cant afford it. It took quite a bit of convincing from my financial advisor to not pay for my house in cash and take advantage of the low low mortgage rates and put my money else where for a better return.

 

[Yoshi]

This:

 

[dbtk]

And it looks like the covers accommodate the side bolster airbags.

 

[Armchair Bronco]

haha very good point. Its not if 1500 is too much money but some people want to stay around 35k like myself. So then it's about choosing your options. Would you rather have leather or the pano roof? or the bixenon lights with 18 inch wheels.

$25 a month for 5 years is still $1500. You can basically say that about anything you buy .. if you break it down over 5 years its only $xxx amount a month. before you know it you are paying several hundred dollars/month to things you may or may not need. Of course everyone is in different situations financially. For me personally I could never imagine a car payment/car loan. I have a pretty conservative upbringing and it's something that's hard for me to change. If I can't pay for it in cash then I feel cant afford it. It took quite a bit of convincing from my financial advisor to not pay for my house in cash and take advantage of the low low mortgage rates and put my money else where for a better return.

I'm the same boat. My wife and I paid off our house years ago for the peace of mind that comes from not having any long-term debt. How much is that worth? Well, TO ME, it's worth a lot more than a single-digit percent return on my money.

However, for the CLA, I've decided to lease a car for the first time because I hate worrying about expensive repair costs for a luxury car that's out of warranty. With a house, if you install new windows, the value of your asset appreciates. With a car, if you put in a new window motor and a new radiator on a 7-year-old car, it doesn't matter because the car is (and will always be) a depreciating boat anchor.

So, I set a realistic monthly leasing budget for myself and tried to get the maximum number of goodies and accessories at that level. Turns out that leasing a MB CLA is a great way to maximize that amount since the residual is so high. But at some point, I had to draw the line before heading down the slippery slope you described.

 

[vracer]

I think the dash and door top improvements alone are worth the $1500. Before ordering a CLA, be sure to sit in one with the stitched dash/door covers, and one without. Being somewhat slow on the uptake, I had to sit in several cars before figured out why the interior of some cars looked like bland economy cars, and others looked like Mercs. During your years of ownership, you will spend many, many hours looking at the interior, and ??? hours looking at the exterior light package, or some other trade off.

 

[vracer]

FWIW: Katzkin and Classic Soft Trim do not list ANY stock kits for any Merc.

 

[Yoshi]

for people that may not want the premium package the leather interior option is actually $3800 since it's required to get the leather in the US.

 

[osiris_x11]

Admittedly, perhaps the best attribute of the optional leather-interior is the contrast/2-tone/stitched dash panels & door inserts. Really makes the interior too prim & proper...

Hey was the "professionally" a dig at me?

Not directed anyone, actually! I was just stating that those who often complain about their Katzkin/etc experience (in terms of fitment/quality) are those who didn't do professional installation. Likewise for those who see a less-than-impressive example, chances are it wasn't installed professionally. There are those who are tempted by the $550'ish price for the leather-interior conversion-kit to do it themselves. It's more than obvious you have the skills & know'how to do it right!

(I had it professionally installed in one of my other vehicles, hog-rings/trimming/glue/padding/etc. required time & experience!)

And it looks like the covers accommodate the side bolster airbags.

Yups- these leather-interior conversion-kits are seat airbag compliant. In all honesty, these are very nice "kits" & indistinguishable from OEM-offerings in terms of fitment/quality/construction (stitching, padding, etc).

 

[Armchair Bronco]

I think the dash and door top improvements alone are worth the $1500. Before ordering a CLA, be sure to sit in one with the stitched dash/door covers, and one without. Being somewhat slow on the uptake, I had to sit in several cars before figured out why the interior of some cars looked like bland economy cars, and others looked like Mercs. During your years of ownership, you will spend many, many hours looking at the interior, and ??? hours looking at the exterior light package, or some other trade off.

Yeah, this is the most compelling argument in favor of getting the leather package, especially if you're already getting the P1 package. For years and years, your view will be from the interior looking *out*, and all that exterior bling will be lost to YOU, the driver.

I should sit in a CLA with the leather package @ the dealership for 15 minutes and then compare and contrast with an MB-Tex interior.

If I decide it's something I *have* to have, I suppose I can consider trading away the pano roof.

 

[osiris_x11]

FWIW: Katzkin and Classic Soft Trim do not list ANY stock kits for any Merc.

That's very interesting, I wonder if it's a proprietary thing?

 

[Yoshi]

osiris, i was only joking about the professional comment Yeah it does take a lot of work. You are right the door trims are very hard to do yourself. But believe it or not the hardest part is the headrest. Katzkin goes for a oem look so the leather is extremely tight. The opening for the headrest on the leather kit normally doesnt fit the headrest. How professional installers do it is they have a tool that sucks out all the air in the foam of the headrest and they slide it on. If you are doing this manually it takes hours just to squeeze it in and make sure the leather is on properly. If I was going to do a katzkin conversion again I would pay an installer to do it now even though I'm fully capable myself

Also very interesting how katzkin doesn't have mercede kits.. Well I guess that ends the aftermarket discussion for people that want to have leather.

I just did a quick google search and they do have katzkin leather seats for the C class and M class. They are older models so not sure if it's proprietary thing like osiris mentioned. Maybe mercdes sued them or wont allow aftermarket kits? Who knows
2002-2004 MERCEDES-BENZ C230 Coupe Katzkin Leather Interior (2 row)

 

[gotboost]

I think the dash and door top improvements alone are worth the $1500. Before ordering a CLA, be sure to sit in one with the stitched dash/door covers, and one without. Being somewhat slow on the uptake, I had to sit in several cars before figured out why the interior of some cars looked like bland economy cars, and others looked like Mercs. During your years of ownership, you will spend many, many hours looking at the interior, and ??? hours looking at the exterior light package, or some other trade off.

I agree, neither i nor my wife were interested in the pano roof, but we both agreed instantly that the stitched interior w/leather was a must have, very "Mercedes", saved another $750 by going with white exterior (wife insisted):haha:

 

[Diber]

i also got the MB-Tex leather just feels a little softer but why dish out the extra 1500 . MB Tex feels just as nice, especially with the heated seats