homecontact us


Over the past few years, leather upholstery has become increasingly popular with car owners for various reasons. More and more car owners now enjoy the luxury of leather sofas in their home, and want the same luxurious comfort when they drive. Compared to fabric, leather does not stain as easily, appealing to those who want easy cleaning. Leather also does not trap dust, appreciated by car owners who are concerned about hygiene.

The offerings for automotive leather range from cowhide leather, semi-leather (combination of cowhide and vinyl) and vinyl leather. To qualify as automotive leather, the material has to meet automotive specifications. While these technical
specifications may differ according to the car makers, we would like to give you some general guidelines on some of the more common specifications.

Thickness: To conform to general automotive specifications, materials used should range from 1.1mm to 1.3mm, although in some cases 1.0mm and less is acceptable. However, we would recommend that any material used should be no less than 0.8mm in thickness. Thickness for materials used in furniture varies from less than 0.8mm to more than 2.0mm.

Abrasion Resistance: Materials used undergo laboratory testing to determine their resistance to rubbing and scratching. In general, materials used for automotive upholstery have a higher abrasion resistance than those used for furniture.

Colour Fastness: Automotive upholstery is exposed to sunlight much more than furniture used in home and offices. Materials used are tested for their ability to resist colour change or fade. Materials used for automotive purposes need to have higher colour fastness than materials used for furniture.

Tensile Strength and Tear Strength: Just like fabrics, leather is tested for its tensile strength which measures its ability to stretch without going out of shape and tear strength which measure how much force is needed to tear the material.

In general, the technical specifications for automotive leather are more stringent than for furniture leather. Leather used for automotive are generally more expensive, thicker and stiffer than those used for furniture except in the case of very High-End Sofas.
 
Among bovine leather (which include buffalo, bull, cow and calf), leather hides made from cow skins are most commonly available and used for both the furniture and the automotive industries. The finished hides are made from the basically the same raw materials. The differences in quality are the result of rawhide selection, the tanning process and the finishing process.

Aniline – Top quality but seldom used as only the best raw hides are selected and the hides are very expensive. Just as pure gold is not practical for making jewelry, true aniline hides are not very practical for automotive upholstery.

Nappa – Although the term “Nappa” originally came from goatskin, in the upholstery industry “Nappa” is now used to describe leather with very fine grain finish. Nappa like leather is used in luxury cars like Rolls Royces. When used for upholstery, Nappa costs much more as the hides are more expensive and also the wastage is higher.

Full Grain – This is the most commonly used cowhide material for upholstery. Some tanneries and leather suppliers use other terms like “Embossed” or “Corrected”. Basically, this hide minimize wastage as scar marks, insect sores, tears and other blemishes are repaired. In the final finishing process, the hide is given a final coating that is embossed with a leather-like grain, and giving the finished hide its colour, colour fastness property, abrasion resistance and leather look. Although the final embossed pattern can be that of other animals and designs, the most common grain types are those that resemble cow skin. There are several grain types that are commonly used in the automotive industry.

Semi-Leather – This term is used to described upholstery that uses a combination of cowhide or natural leather and artificial leather, usually made from vinyl. In most cases of “Semi-Leather” (sometimes called “Half-Leather”), only the areas that comes into contact with the human body are upholstered in cowhide leather. This is usually done to reduce costs and is applicable to both the furniture and automotive industries. In some cases, the materials look so similar when the upholstery is done even an expert will find it hard to tell the difference between the artificial leather and the cowhide leather.


 

Artificial Leather has improved tremendously over the years. Some are so good that even experts are not able to tell them apart from natural leather without careful inspection. There are several types that are superior to and more expensive than cowhide leather. An example is Alcantara ® which is suede-like and used on some models of Lexus. A common complaint about vinyl leather is that unlike cowhide, it does not have pores and cannot “breathe”. One of the latest development used to overcome this problem is the use of micro-perforations. An example is Autotexx TM which has 220 micro-perforated holes per square inch. These holes are invisible to the naked eyes but allow the material to “breathe”, so much so that in some cases, the heat dissipation is superior to cowhide leather.

The range of vinyl leather varies even more widely than cowhide leather. Vinyl leather used for automotive purposes should also conform to specifications like thickness, colour fastness, abrasion resistance and tensile strength. Because of these developments, consumers who are against the use of or are allergic to animal products can now choose from a wide range of man-made materials.