Sport touring leather seats + salt and sand? How tough is the leather?

[matt327894]

I am buying a new civic hatchback this week, and am looking at a CPO 2024 sport touring. Normally I am cloth seats all day every day, not a fan of the way leather gets hot/cold with weather. But I really want the sound system and other perks of the touring.

I've never owned leather seats before, so what should I know about upkeep? Is it true or myth that they require maintenance to keep from sagging/cracking?

I am moving to a beach town, house is just a few miles from the ocean. I also have dogs. I'm assuming salt water will destroy the leather... Are there seat covers that protect the tops of the seats/back of the headrests when folded down? Does dog hair or dirt/gunk get stuck in the perforations?

In my 2020 Civic Hatchback, I keep the back seats down 90% of the time, and throw a waterproof cover (more like a sheet of fabric really, just lays on top) down, and a big king size fuzzy blanket on top of it. Fuzzy blanket attracts most of the hair, cover keeps things dry. The cloth seats look new, and the only maintenance I ever had to do was vacuuming sand and fur off of them once in a while. Maybe wipe down the plastic doors with a damp washcloth once they started getting salt residue built up. Very easy.

What am I getting myself into with the leather? Is it tougher than I think it is? Will Salt stain or dry it out?

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[sterminare]

I got my sport touring in february, so got a couple weeks of salt and whatnot, didn't notice any staining

Buuuut I will say I haven't been very impressed with the leather which sucks because I really wanted it.

This is the back seat back in february when I'd had the car for about 3 days and someone sat in the back seat for a ~3hr trip.

It did shrink back to straight but in the cold weather it took about a week to look flat again. It still does this whenever someone sits in the back but in the hot summer it shrinks back after about a day. The front seats do not stretch nearly as bad, barely after a very long trip, and are back to normal instantly or after a couple hours.

The front passenger seat gets a fat wrinkle/fold in the far side bolster every time someone sits on it. Again it goes away for the most part after a day or so in the warm weather, takes longer now that its cold again.

After just 10 months there is a fair amount of creasing and wrinkles on the seat in the thighs area.

As far as I know, only the ventilated portions in the middle are actual leather, the bolsters and shoulders are fake leather. The ventilation holes love to pick up bits of sand and have to poked and vacuumed to get them really clean.

I condition the entire seat anyway with leather conditioner every couple weeks.

The Bose system is nice though! and the rest of the touring trim is worth it imo.