When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
mINE IS A 2006 C4S, MANUAL, BLACK ON SAND BEIGE WITH LEATHER PKG THAT INCLUDES DASH AND DOOR PANELS IN LEATHER?
IT CURRENTLY HAS 78,000 MILES. ABOUT THREE YEARS AGO I GOT SOME LEATHER CLEANING PRODUCTS THINKING I'M GOING TO MESS UP THIS INTERIOR! WELL, I'VE CLEANED THE STEERING WHEEL TWICE NOW. I DRIVE IT DAILY, BUT I DON'T CARRY AROUND A HOCKEY BAG ANY MORE, AND I HAVE ZERO COMPLAINTS.
WHEN LOOKING AT CARS ON LINE, I DID NOT WANT SAND BEIGE!!!! IN PERSON WITH THE LEATHER DASH THIS THING LOOKS TEN TIMES BETTER THAN ANY PLASTIC DASH CAR I SAW! I HAVE BLACK MATS WHICH PROBABLY HELP, AND THE INTERIOR IS A WHOLE LOT COOLER WHEN THE TEMPS GET UP IN THE SUMMER.
GET WHAT YOU LIKE, NOT WHAT ANYONE ELSE LIKES. IT'S YOUR CAR AND WHEN IT COMES TIME TO SELL IT REMEMBER...THERE'S AN *** FOR EVERY SEAT...SOMEONE ELSE WILL WANT IT, TOO.
I have sand beige, and love it. My theory, with Sand Beige you have to clean and condition the seats more often to keep them looking nice. Hence, all that cleaning and conditioning keeps the leather looking nice for a longer period of time.
Mine look like the pic on the right and same age car as yours and a DD. Regular apps of conditioner/cleaner can keep them looking like new. Less than an hour a year
Wasn’t me, and it’s just the drivers bolster. The rest of the seats are perfect. I bought it 4 yrs old w/21K on it. Apparently the original owner scraped it with a pants pocket button whenever he got in and out. I had it dyed professionally but after 9 years of cleaning it needed redoing.
The bigger issue was the steering wheel, shifter and ebrake, which I had to clean a lot. And the soft-touch plastic. The problem with beige (or gray, blue, red or any color but black) is color change with age and need to custom tint the factory color by eye to get a match. Beige doesn’t wear more than black, it just shows dirt and wear more readily and is more complicated to touch up.
Mine is 14 years old, 74K mi, DD until recently. Constant touchups with paint from Home Depot, just today redyed bolster (much better than the “pro” did it 8 years ago if I do say so myself). Got fed up with the shifter, e brake, wheel, ignition and headlight switch rosettes and replaced with black. Black mats also. I use a microfiber seat armor slipcover to keep the blue from my jeans from rubbing off. I love the color but not the upkeep. Maybe if I only drove it on weekends a few months a year. I will never get anything but black interior again.
Ditto. I had a beige interior for years and it was a nightmare maintenance-wise. Black only from here forward for me.
Mine is 14 years old, 74K mi, DD until recently. Constant touchups with paint from Home Depot, just today redyed bolster (much better than the “pro” did it 8 years ago if I do say so myself). Got fed up with the shifter, e brake, wheel, ignition and headlight switch rosettes and replaced with black. Black mats also. I use a microfiber seat armor slipcover to keep the blue from my jeans from rubbing off. I love the color but not the upkeep. Maybe if I only drove it on weekends a few months a year. I will never get anything but black interior again.
Holy smokes, how much do you weigh. 74,000 miles? I have never had any seats look that worn out and stretched out with even more miles than that.
Based on the photos of the seat backs, these are factory supple leather seats that look like they're stretched out and wrinkled like a 70's Cadillac even when new. Calling out someones weight is lame as they would look the same even if he was 120 pound jockey.
To the OP: Tan / beige looks great in a black or red car, but just does not wear well. The natural leather upgrade holds up better, but If you're worried about long-term wear or resale, I would stick to black.
Originally Posted by Doug H
Holy smokes, how much do you weigh. 74,000 miles? I have never had any seats look that worn out and stretched out with even more miles than that.
Based on the photos of the seat backs, these are factory supple leather seats that look like they're stretched out and wrinkled like a 70's Cadillac even when new. Calling out someones weight is lame as they would look the same even if he was 120 pound jockey.
To the OP: Tan / beige looks great in a black or red car, but just does not wear well. The natural leather upgrade holds up better, but If you're worried about long-term wear or resale, I would stick to black.
I have never liked supple because they always looked used and stretched out to me, but come on . . . those photos depct something way more than just the factory supple look. There is like a ring around the outside of the driver's seat. I guarantee you some in the 200 pound range had this car for a while which would also be consistent with the wear he repaired.
I have been around 911s of all years and makes all my life and you rarely, if ever, see something that bad (as depicted in pre-repair photos). I just do not believe that accurately portrays what one should expect a sand beige interior to look like even after 100,000 + miles through normal wear, tear and used.
I too had cars with mostly black or grey interiors and when I was looking for my car, I wanted a different interior color and love the look of sand beige on black. The interior on my 2011 C4 looks great after all this time and the reflection off the windshield isn’t something I notice at all. My car is garaged, so the interior does protected from long exposure to sunlight (and I use a windshield protector if my car is outside for extended periods of time) but it is my daily driver and I do haul my kids around every day and run plenty errands (getting ready for a Costco run now). Even then all it takes is regular cleaning and it looks great. The 911 cabin is small, so with a lighter interior it makes it feel roomier to me since you can actually see more of it in different lighting conditions. Any way, embrace the beige!
'09 Targa 4S with sand beige, not a DD. I am super happy with this interior and it's still looking great! It is a perfect fit with the white exterior IMO.
One of the things I love about it here in high-solar-radiation Colorado is reduced interior heating. The Targa gets plenty hot when parked outside anyway, but I feel pretty sure that with a black interior it would be a total oven.
I had one pair of jeans that was transferring some color... I bought different jeans. That seemed like a hell of a lot simpler solution than a different car/interior LOL.
Also, I agree with the comments that the dash glare is not really a problem with polarized glasses... it's all I use anyway (again, that Colorado sun) and whenever I take them off on a bright day, it's very apparent they really work to cut down on the reflection in the windscreen and just general bounced light from the dash.
I have never liked supple because they always looked used and stretched out to me, but come on . . . those photos depct something way more than just the factory supple look. There is like a ring around the outside of the driver's seat. I guarantee you some in the 200 pound range had this car for a while which would also be consistent with the wear he repaired.
I have been around 911s of all years and makes all my life and you rarely, if ever, see something that bad (as depicted in pre-repair photos). I just do not believe that accurately portrays what one should expect a sand beige interior to look like even after 100,000 + miles through normal wear, tear and used.
Everything you see was there when I bought the car at 4yrs/21K miles. I’m the second owner, don’t know anything about the first, but I weigh 140-145. The seat bottom looks worse in the photo than in real life, (which was meant only to show the black wheel and shifter/ebrake) but as supple leather is looser to begin with it is more susceptible to further stretching.
That said, at one point I was considering changing out the entire interior for black, and literally every black driver’s seat I saw advertised had some noticeable creases/wrinkles on the seating surfaces, as well as scuffs and superficial finish wear on the outer seatback bolster. The durability of Porsche’s black finish is the same as all other colors, it’s just simpler to achieve a color match with when refinishing.
I had Sand Beige on my 997.1 which I drove for 5 years/30k miles and now in my 997.2. I also had a couple M3s with light interiors and one with black. The Sand Beige and light interiors are far better. They open up the interior making a small car feel bigger and are so much rarer than boring black. A good cleaning once or maybe twice a year is all you need.
A friend of mine purchased a new car.... she was so excited. I said "What color is it?". She responded with a big smile "Smoke grey with black leather interior... oooo... its beautiful!". Me, "Oh really".
I’ve not noticed the glare. This thread motivated me to detail my car this weekend. Of course single digit temps, sub zero wind chills, snow ,ice and sleet had some incentive also. While my car is new to me and was purchased d in great shape I’ve found that routine cleaning and conditioning works wonders with interiors. Since the history of my car, five owners, is unknown to me I have assumed that somewhere in that mix someone might not have taken as good of care as I can. I agree with all the positive opinions about sand beige. A car can never be too clean.
So what we've proven in this thread is that people prefer different interior colors for various reasons. Of course, Porsche already knew that, which is why they offer all these interior colors - browns, blues, reds, blacks, greys, beiges, etc. and in additional a whole slew of trim options to go with those colors (carbon fiber, aluminum look, actual aluminum, light and dark wood trims, etc. That's one of the great things about Porsches - you can make them look exactly the way you want them to, either from the the factory, Exclusive Option, or from the aftermarket.
01-18-2019, 09:42 PM
