I'm mentally scarred from my childhood days when you jumped into mum and dad's car with vinyl seats and getting 2nd degree burns. Now I find that half the cars I find to buy have leather seats. Should someone who has to park their car outside at work in summer be wary of buying a car with leather interior?

yes i know. As kids we had an international v8 petrol bus with no ac or tinted windows that had all vinyl seats.

was noisy, dusty, slow and very hot in summer and freezing in winter.

yes even the cream colour leather is hot in summer especially when it's been in the sun
One summer I had the sunroof open in the beemor and jumped in with my short skirt on and nearly burnt my twat ooops did I say that.

the leather does smell good, but hot in summer and cold in winter and you have to treat it all the time as well as it's exposed to the elements.

Leather is the best for car seats. The main thing is not to let it dry out. A good leather dressing, such as Gee-Why, will keep it looking - and feeling - good for many years.

What about modern vinyl there are some high quality vinyls that im considering for my bug

Well thats a bummer cos there's a nice bright red gti that got traded at the toyota dealer on friday. 2 doors and burnt legs. One I could possibly live with.

We have had leather seats in our cars for years but always put lambswool seat covers on them so we didn't burn ourselves. If the car is good value, just factor in the covers to the price and you will be fine.

Yogie

But doesnt installing seat covers on leather seats sort of remove the reason you go with leather?

The thiing with us was, we had no choice, leather just came as standard in the cars. They are also convertibles so take a pounding from the sun as the roof is down most of the time. The seats also get VERY dirty from all of the road grime around so we get the seat covers dry cleaned every now and then and they look like new. We tried cleaning them at the beginning but they never clean fully so now they are fully protected from the elements and will last pretty much forever.

Yogie

I thought leather would be as bad as vinyl but its really not.. my sisters golf (08) has leather interior and its not uncomfortably hot in summer, it does help that the car has tinted windows. A bonus in Melbourne is that the leather interior comes with heated seats.