How durable is the fabric upholstery

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fi500at

Member
Joined
Dec 28, 2020
Messages
6
For those who have the base Deka or Mega trims with cloth seats, do you find them to be durable? Or would the Giga or Tera be a better choice?
I'm super careful with my cars, just wondering how durable the fabric upholstery is.

Looking at getting a 2017 used i3 and I'm trying to compare the different cars available. Noting that the pre-owned inventory is very limited, with each dealer having only 2 or 3 cars for sale, so not too many options as far as interior and external colors go.

Many thanks.
 
Giga World (a.k.a., Lodge) seats are wool with leather trim along the edges. Tera World (a.k.a., Suite) all-leather seats are the only seats that aren't cloth.

Our 2014 i3 is a Giga World trim level. The wool portions of the seats can certainly stain like other cloth seats. We've been careful to avoid stains, but others have reported stains that were difficult to remove.

As far as durability goes, I see no evidence of wear, so they seem quite durable although our i3 hasn't been driven much. The only durability complaints I recall reading are with the Sensatec faux leather trim on Mega World (a.k.a., Loft) seats. The dyed surface can wear through along the driver's seat edge where the driver has slid in and out of the seat repeatedly.

This reminds me that I should take this opportunity to finally apply to the wool portions of our seats the Scotchgard that I've had for 6 years :D
 
People have reported that their fabric seats are prone to staining easily, showing liquid staining, and even prone to dye transfer from 'new' bluejeans where they rub against seat edges entering and exiting. The light colored steering wheels seem also prone to discoloration, staining and surface deterioration from contact with skin oils. One of the main reasons I went with the Terra with the leather seats and dark colored steering wheel. Car is six years old and both the seats and the steering still wheel look new with just normal DIY leather cleaning and treatment twice a year or so.
 
2014 Mega with ~40k miles, original owners. It's a daily driver for shopping, errands (best car for that :D ). Seats look like new, I've had few small stains on the fabric which were successfully removed with Scotchguard cleaner. I had a problem on the leather piece on the driver seat back though - it got very worn out from entering/exiting - was replaced under warranty.
 
I just got my Deka i3, it is a 2017 with only 9k miles and luckily the interior was pretty clean. For now I used 3m scotchguard I hopes that it will prevent it from staining.
 
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