Cars and leather

[Jonathan]

Slight ethical dilema here.

Cars tend to be adorned with leather. It is seen as a status symbol so even if you don't have leather seats you often have a leather steering wheel/gear stick/gear stick gator etc.

Would you refuse to buy a car because of such details? Obviously, the strict vegan line dictates no, but there are so many with these little additions that you could be turning down many a good car because of it.

For instance, we have just bought an Audi A4 1.9tdi SE. We didn't specifically go for the SE spec, but because we are on a tight budget, it was the right car at the right time. It's very eco friendly because of the fuel efficiency, but it has several of the leather details listed above. They come up so infrequently that we could have been months waiting for an non-SE spec one to turn up. And then we would be without climate control (one summer without it was pretty bad) and a decent stereo too.

Plus, as far as I have heard, there is animal sourced stearic acid in car tyres. Where do you draw the line?

I suppose the question I am asking is, if you were buying a second hand car, would you not buy one with leather in it.

Jonathan

[Catt Queen]

I would have to buy whatever I could afford at the time; most recently that was a fifteen year old car for £300 on ebay - best car I've had cost wise, and very little leather, if any at all (can't say I've noticed any).

[JP]

yeah, wouldnt buy a second hand leather jacket, or a car with leather in it.

Same thing with leather powerlifting belts - no options out there (yet! if ever!), but i wouldnt buy one. I borrowed one sometimes, kind of like i would sit in someones car if it did have leather seats (though they always feel really uncomfortable!).

[fredrikw]

Whether the tires contain stearic acid or not is not really relevant, because there's really no reasonable way to avoid this if you're going to get a car with tires. Leather seats on the other hand are easy to avoid since not all cars have them.

We just bought a second hand car, and we talked about this and I'd never buy a car with leather interior, for the same reason I'd never buy a second hand leather jacket. Now for us this was an easy choice because we didn't look for a car where a majority of previous owners thought leather interior was important, but the question is how important one specific car/brand/model is.

On the other hand, you've already bought the car so I guess you've already made up your mind about this.

[Jonathan]

Well the thing was that we didn't know that it had any leather in it until we went to see it. Then upon inspection we realised that it had a small amount, but that there really was no other option (I'm really limited with cars due to my height - all small cars are out and larger cars tend to have more leather) other than get something far less efficient.

It's really frustrating that there is so much leather in cars.

I guess another way to look at it is that if you want a good quality car (as in a good German marque for example) it's very hard to get them without leather. But from an environmental point of view German diesels are excellent as they last so long (ours has 189000 miles/304000km on the clock already and it is still in excellent condition).

I suppose what is sad in a way is that I have let my ethics slide a little. In times gone by I would be reluctant to even sit on a leather seat...

Jonathan

[spike]

Very hypothetical as I am never likely to buy a car, but it seems like since most have bits of leather here and there (e.g. gearstick) it would be hard to avoid.

I seem to remember a thread a while back about someone renting a flat that had a leather sofa - again, not much you can do about it if you're renting other than ask the landlord to put it in one of their other houses or chuck a throw over it.

[fredrikw]

I'm not really sure why you started this thread Jonathan. Are you seeking understanding why you had no other option than to buy a car with leather interior? Personally I don't see this, of course you had the option of not buying that specific car, but you chose to prioritize getting that specific car. That's of course your personal choice, but you really shouldn't expect people to support this on a vegan board, should you?

[Jonathan]

I'm not really sure why you started this thread Jonathan.

You are probably right Fredrik. We had just been having a discussion about it this evening and I thought that I would see where people draw the line. I'm not fishing for support, just voicing frustration that if you are limited by budget, size or efficiency of the car in question, it can become very hard to find a car without leather.

We live in a very non-vegan world, and whilst cars are a wonderful thing that I could now not be without, they seem to be quite non-vegan anyway, whether or not they have leather in them.

Jonathan

[Jonathan]

The reason why the topic came up initially is that I had an idea for a business where I could combine many of my passions. I wanted to start a business taking people on personalised tours of the Scottish Highlands. In order to take 3-4 people it has to be a large car due to my height (no one can sit behind me otherwise). The job would combine my love of driving with my interest in Scottish History and natural heritage.

However, all the cars that would be suitable (Audi A8's, Mercedes S class, BMW 7 series, Lexus) have leather upholstery. The only way to get a large car without leather is to get something from the 80's (a W126 Mercedes for instance), but a good example is far too expensive.

So I'm stuck here, with a good idea for a job that I think I would love, but completely unable to do it because of the issue of leather-clad interiors on larger, decent quality cars. This is my frustration.

It's just something that I am trying to figure out in my head.

Please feel free to delete the thread if you deem it irrelevant.

Jonathan

[fredrikw]

We live in a very non-vegan world, and whilst cars are a wonderful thing that I could now not be without, they seem to be quite non-vegan anyway, whether or not they have leather in them.

While this may be true, the same line of reasoning could be used to rationalise why eating vegan food won't make such a big difference, seeing how un-vegan the rest of the world is. This, and most other issues, boils down to what you perceive as being your choices. If you truly believe that there was no way of avoiding leather then I guess you really had no choice. If not, I guess getting that specific car was more important than avoiding leather.

[J]

I still love you Jonathan.

[bob_summers]

are you sure it's leather? my old company car appeared to have leather this-n-that, which was just vinyl when i unpicked it to look at the back.

re. the tours thing - would a minivan make more sense to carry 4+ people and luggage? vito, transporter, etc. and no leather

[emm7]

So I'm stuck here, with a good idea for a job that I think I would love, but completely unable to do it because of the issue of leather-clad interiors on larger, decent quality cars. This is my frustration.

Just buy the leather car lad. It's not as if you're buying a new car & increasing the demand for leather cars because the car will have had many previous owners. And there are a lot of factors that make a non-leather option unviable for what you want to do.

There is no absolute good and bad in my view anyway, I think that ethics is more shades of grey than black and white.

Your case is an example of shades of grey. Having to balance various opposing factors.

I think that you will do more good being happy and fulfilled and owning a car with a bit of leather in it than saying no to such a car and being professionally unfulfilled, career is very important as we spend so many hours a day at work and it really does have an influence on life.

[JP]

are you sure you dont have something which you are very passionate about, which is your interest in specific cars and driving, and then just rationalising the choices afterwards with efficiency, best makes and so on?

As a business idea, i dont think having a normal size car probably wouldnt work anyway in personalised tours, it would need to be a 9 seater no?

[kallefs]

There is options if you want to...

http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/200 ... usat_x.htm