I have a choice between the two, and personally like the look of the black cloth vs the tan leather, but I was wondering if you had any opinions on why I shouldn't ditch the leather?

 

No

 

Leather is comfortable, sucks *** trying to hold yourself in place around corners.

 

I'd ditch the tan seats. Go with either black cloth or leather. I have leather and love it, but I also have a 6pt harness for when I need to stay put.

 

word x 3

 

Drive naked on a hot summer day you wont have a problem

 

Do the seats have the built in speakers?

I like the Tan leather w/ the speakers in mine...

 

yeah, both the seats have built in speakers

i'll probably go with the cloth since i slide off the leather. lol

 

every tan seat i've seen on miatas look like they were pulled out of pig manure. after 10+ years, all the leather surfaces are nasty.

no thanks. cloth ftw on these cars. this ain't no mercedes. duh.

 

That and cloth is much more durable in convertibles than leather.

 

I'm 6'3" and leather seats seem to be thicker, so I'm more comfortable in cloth seats.

 

I'd disagree. I think leather is better in a convertable, look how faded and shitty looking most NA black cloth seats look.

Having said that, Mazda leather is *****.

 

my miata's leather looks like it could survive nuclear winter.

 

I've been in the dealership world for a while, and I've talked to a lot of upholstery shops, and for the most part, they seem to agree that leather doesn't last quite as long as cloth. But at the same time, I think the climate has a lot to do with the life span.
And yes, Mazda leather sucks, had a '91 RX7 convertible and that leather was horrible. The cloth on my '95 still looks almost new (except for the driver's outer bolster, but even that is barely worn).

 

I reupholstered some '95 "M" seats in black leather/black perforated leather. i used a much higher grade learher than OEM, a little thicker too.

I like them a lot more than my faded stock cloth seats that gave me monkey *** on long drives.

leather vs cloth is a personal preference. i love my leather seats, they're rare but subtle and uniquely my own. i think they breathe better than my stock cloth seats did.

 

Nuclear winter = no problem.

A few errant rays of sunshine poking out from behind a cloud on a warm spring day = the suck.


Seriously, all else being equal I like the look of leather in a sports car- unless it happens to be a convertible. Every Miata with leather seats I've seen looked horrible- faded and cracked.

In terms of performance however, it's cloth FTW. With the stock seat belts, cloth seats do a much better job of holding ones **** securely in place when cornering. I've never driven a car with leather seats that I didn't feel like I was sliding around in. Ok- the one exception would be a friend's '80s vintage Ferarri 512 that I once drove. You didn't feel like you were sliding around inside that car because instead you felt that you were being squeezed in a vise and had a large anvil placed upon your genitals, which was not a bad thing because the steering felt like the helm of the HMS Marshal Soult and the shifter was apparently connected to the transmission by means of a depleted uranium rod 36" in diameter and containing forty-two helm joints. It was not a comfortable car to drive.

 

The problem with the leather in the Miata is that it's embossed. So you can't condition it and it cracks. So you've got sub-par leather coverd with plastic.

Aftermarket covers are much nicer.

 

I went ahead and did it! In case anybody else wants to, here's how it looks [switching out the pass. seat today for a nicer one]:






I also ditched the soft top.

The only problem I ran into was that the leather seats had built in seat belt connectors, so I had to take them out of my other miata as well as the bolt.

Sorry for the crappy pics, but it was a camera phone

 

Uh blaque that has no value from what i can see. Did you forget some pics?

 

What?