Interior Quality

[erhayes]

Impressions of the cloth seats and interior quality. I am undecided on the Sport or Touring. I do keep my vehicles for ~8 years & 125,000 miles so the seat material and other stuff needs to be very good. Comments?

 

[UpNorth]

I too tend to keep my cars for a long time (8 to 10 years), though I don't put on as many miles. I bought a Sport almost two months ago, with the sand colored cloth seats. Right after my purchase, I regretted not getting a Touring (I didn't even look at one) as I thought I made a mistake in foregoing the leather seats.

Now I feel better about having the cloth. I have had them treated to guard against stains so I am pretty confident that they will continue to look good. I have also found that the cloth tranfers less temperature than the leather. For me, the fear is getting in and having cold seats, for you, (I think I saw you are in Florida), you'll have the opposite problem -too warm.

I haven't had any cause for concern about the quality of the cloth seats themselves in the Sport model. (I am not thrilled with the carpet, which I believe someone else cleverly described as cardboard covered in felt. But I believe that problem runs across all trims.) My last car was a 97 Mazda Protege and after ten years, the light colored cloth seats looked just fine and had no damage. I have no reason to think these cloth seats will fare any worse. Indeed, the CX-7 cloth seems much much nicer.

Your answer may depend upon how you'll use the CX-7. If you have a big dog that would have the run of the seats, I would get leather. But if it is for you and other reasonably well behaved humans, I think you'd be fine with cloth.

Good luck making the decision. I don't think you can make a bad one. It is such a fun car to own.

 

[mikey1981]

let me just say right off the bat - that when i first saw the cx-7, the only one they had on the floor was a touring in cloth. at first touch, i was slightly amazed. cloth is top notch, awesome feel, almost a suede, if leather isnt a big deal for you, that cloth is excellent. much richer and better quality than competitors cloth's (CRV yikes!) durability? who knows - the headliner is garbage but if you can get beyond that, the interior is great, plastics tend to be more prone to scratches than other vehicles, but nothing major.

 

[azcat]

Last year, I went to replace the OEM cloth seat coverings on my '97 Miata because of wear on the driver's seat left bolster (where your butt drags getting in). The best place in town said that cloth wears better than leather. Despite their comments, I went with leather Katskinz for the Miata and black leather for the -7. Why? Leather smells soooo good, feels sooooo good, and, by God, I'm worth it.