OT
I find that it's just as hard as in the past to find the kind of used car I want, especially the color. I had promised myself 37 years ago that I would hever have a black top or black upholstery, but one car for sale has black or maybe charcoal colored CLOTH upholstery.
Would that be hot in the summer like vinyl and leather are? I wear shorts all summer and even my medium brown leather seats are hot to touch but when I had black vinyl, that was burning hot.
But I'm not sure about cloth. ???
Being black it will absorb some heat, but no, it will not be hot like black vinyl or leather upholstery.
I've had dark leather seats and cloth seats. Never a problem with them being hot in the summer. For one thing sun doesn't fall directly on the seats for the most part, so they are just at the temp of the car interior. And there is AC. Whenever I've gotten into a hot car, the problem has been the overall temp, not the seats. I suppose if you're in AZ and have direct sun at the right angle to get into the car, then it may make a material difference.
micky wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
Cloth should be no problem. I have a dark grey car with a black cloth interior. It sits in the sun, on the south side of my house, which really cooks. The car exterior gets hot, the inside is warm, but the seats are fine. I can easily sit on the seats in shorts. Once inside, I do open all windows for a while to let the warmed air out, then turn on the A/C.
OTOH, I also have another car, red outside, with black leather seats. It sits in the same place as the car above. The seats get so hot, there's no way I can sit on them, in long or short pants, before letting the A/C run for a while.
Good luck.
Given the same temperature environment, I would expect all materials to arrive at the same temperature. However, there is a difference in how well materials conduct that temperature. Metals do it well, feathers, not so much.
Convertible? In the sun it will be hotter than a light color, but not as hot as leather and smooth vinyl will feel. That cloth seat is probably not cloth anyway but some sort of plastic with a textured fuzzy finish.
In a regular sedan, won't feel much different than any other color. My present car is black leather and feels no different than the tan I had in the past.
Leather has a smooth surface that gives more skin contact than a textured cloth type material so it won't feel as hot or cold. Same as tile versus carpet though both are actually the same temperature.
For me it would not be a deal breaker.
In sunlight, dark colours will get much hotter.
There are perforated seat cushions, perforated seat cushions with fans, and some gel seat cushions. Amazon:
No.
Yes.
Put ball bearings and feathers in the freezer and they will all be the same temperature. Ditto in an oven. Radiant heat is a different story.
Micky wasn't asking about ball bearings, she was asking about whether cloth seats would be as hot as leather or vinyl. They won't and I know this for a fact.
Depends. Will the leather and vinyl be hotter or just feel hotter? Many people get confused at actual versus feeling temperatures. It all about heat transfer.
Take two materials common in many houses carpet and ceramic tile. They usually are at the same temperature, but feel different. Say your house is 70 degrees. Your body is about 97 degrees. Barefoot, you stand on the carpet and feel comfortable, but on the ceramic tile you feel cold. Both are the same temperature. Your foot on carpet is supported by a group of individual fibers surrounded by air. Since air is a poor conductor of heat you don't feel much heat being sucked from your body. Steop on the tile and you feel it as being colder. That is because you have greater skin contact and the tile has greater thermal mass so it is taking the heat away from your body faster.
Same principle applies to the leather versus cloth seats. Dark colors absorb more heat from the sun, but the smoother material will always fell different than the textured, be it hot or cold.
So. Mickey was asking about ball bearings in a manner of speaking. They feel colder/hotter than feathers. .
Very good explanation. Yes, it's very noticeable how the tile floor is cold all year long. (not cold enough to put a heater in it like a few folks do.)
Thanks for all the answers. I'm sure now that the seats would be comfortable enough, but I haven't had time to go see the car anyhow, and partly because I'm afraid I still won't know whether to buy it.
I don't want to buy a car now, but otoh, Chrysler had stopped making all but v. small convertibles (except this year they have a new one coming out. I don't know anything about it except that it's 35 or 40K and I won't be able to afford it for another 5 years (when the few they've sold the first year are 5 years old.)
So I should start shopping early. And in theory, late fall is a good time to get a good price on a convertible, but otoh, I plan to go out of the country for 10 weeks and and I hate to have so much time when I first have a car getting old while I'm not using it.
I did manage to manipulate the HOA into repairing the parking lot drain, so at least I don't have to worry about the car being flooded now.
Everything you say is exactly my situation. Thanks.
For decades I was happy I didn't have cloth seats because with a convertible, I didn't want the water soaking into the cushions when I leave the top down and it rains. But it turns out it's not a problem. The foam is stiff for the first 5 or 10 minutes, but after that it's normal again. And cloth didn't crack like the vinyl did when I put my knee on it to reach over to the passenger seat floor, or like the leather eventually did a bit (both cars were 14 or 15 years old.)
But that cloth was a light color, certainly not black so I was still concerned.
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