Asphalte.ch

Hanse a écrit :Ce n'est pas directement une remarque sur l'entretien, mais sur le confort: je viens de faire pas mal de route (des heures d'affilée) et j'ai transpiré sur les sièges en "cuir", malgré un temps ensoleillé mais pas des plus chaud et malgré la clim qui maintenait une bonne température dans l'habitacle. Le cuir, ça peut être beau et ça peut bien vieillir, et ça s'entretient pas trop mal, mais ce n'est en réalité pas ce qu'il y a de plus confortable. Si c'était à refaire, je privilégierais les sièges textile ou alcantara.

En occasion cependant, des sièges cuirs sont peut-être plus "hygiéniques" que des sièges textile: le cuir peut sans doute mieux se laver que les tissus dans lesquels la crasse et la transpiration a pénétré en profondeur.

The leather that quattro GmbH uses for the interiors of its cars comes primarily from agricultural livestock in central Europe. The supplier of the seat covers must fulfill a strict catalogue of quality criteria. Specialists from Audi Quality Assurance examine all the leather types in a lab. In dozens of tests, they must show consistency in their tensile properties, where they may possibly begin to tear, how fire-proof they are, how they withstand UV light and which odors and emissions they release.

Even during the tanning process – the first step prior to coloring – there are no chrome salts involved. 20 years ago, Audi was a pioneer in the automotive industry when it banned this chemical that is commonly used in leather for shoes and clothing. Enormous care is also taken in the further processing of the premium quality grades of this natural material. In the case of the fine nappa leather, which is standard in most variants of the Audi R8, mechanical handling and so-called dressing – the coating that seals the pores and makes the surface more resistant to wear – is kept to a bare minimum. The leather is natural, breathable and supple – in a word: premium.

The roughly six square-meter surface of a hide can be divided into three quality zones. quattro GmbH accepts only the top one – a layer more than a millimeter thick that usually always comes from the area around the center of the back. The structure of the fibers in this area is particularly even and firm, while tears or scars caused by injuries, parasites or warts are rare. When cutting the individual parts – which is done sometimes with metal blades in a stamping machine and sometimes under high water pressure – craftsmen are meticulous in their search for defects. Upholstering a full set of seats usually requires four hides.