Do leather car seats get hot in summer?

Leather always absorbs heat very quickly so, anything made of leather exploits heats very easily. In that case, leather car seats not only exploit body heat but also from surroundings and the heat lasts for a long, long time, so it gets hot in summer.

Are you still worried that your car seat might heat up during summer? Well, there is no need to worry about that-

Let us start with the debate on whether it does leather car seats heat up during summer or not and settle this debate for the last time. Some would say yes, it is possible for your car’s leather seat to heat up during summer and the rest would say that no, it’s not possible for your car’s leather seat to heat up during summer. The ones who say that your car’s leather seats do not heat up are completely wrong, as leather car seats tend to heat up a lot during summer.

My car has leather seats on them and every summer, it’s not that easy to sit in the car comfortably due to how hot the leather gets. Even though it provides your car with a Richy rich look, the leather car seats will manage to burn your back if you try to sit in your car during a hot summer day. But, how do your car’s leather seats heat up so fast?

Why Leather Always Gets Hot In Summer?

Foremost, when we think of leather car seats, we usually picture them in black color because almost every single car that has leather as their car seats has them in color black. Now, why is this a problem? Well, it’s mainly due to the fact that the color black absorbs heat and very quickly. It does not matter if it’s a black can or a black plastic bottle or black leather car seats, as long as it’s black, it will absorb heat at a very fast rate, hence the extremely hot leather car seats.

The color white, however, acts completely opposite as it reflects heat and does not absorb in heat much, but a white leather car seat does not look, no matter what car it is. Some might think black leather car seats only absorb the heat that is directed at them like sunlight, but that’s not all, apart from that, it also absorbs heat that is present inside the car.

So, if you think you have covered up your car with a car cover but parked it on the sidewalk, there won’t be much use for the car cover, as the black leather seats will absorb the heat from your surroundings and make the interior hot.

Comparison between leather car seats with wool, cloth, and vinyl

Let us now compare it leather car seats with wool, cloth and vinyl and see what type of car seat get hotter at a faster rate. Let’s start with wool and in short, leather car seats will get hot faster when compared to wool. Why is that? Well, that is due to the fact that, wool has high heat capacity and it is a very good insulator so it is able to spread around the heat in a quick manner with the help of air circulation which lets it cool down the woolen car seat in no time.

Even though people will think that wool’s job is to retain heat, it still won’t absorb too much heat making it a viable option to put on your car seat. Next up, we have cloth, which has the ability to contain heat at even a much higher capacity than leather. Leather can easily get damaged and create cracks in them when they are used for a really long and when they get hot way too much, but cloth is a lot more durable as no matter how hot it gets, it won’t tear or break apart at all.

Since cloth is more porous when compared to leather, it is able to fan out the heat and slowly make sure that the heat goes around and passes out of the car without making the interior of the car too hot, unlike leather. Last up, we have vinyl car seats but when you hear the word vinyl, it reminds you of a vinyl record or a funko pop or even water pipes but vinyl is just the short form of Polyvinyl Chloride. It’s pretty much used in a lot of places but today, we will be focusing on the car seat part as they are also used in car seats.

What makes an even better candidate than leather?

Well, for starters, vinyl has a very high thermal conductivity when compared to leather and this feature allows it the heat to swiftly move around the seat and fan out of the car due to airflow and turn your car’s interior a lot cooler than before. Apart from the high thermal conductivity property, it also has a much lower heat capacity when compared side to side with leather and due to that property, it can take in, let out and fan out the heat at a much faster rate than leather. Aside from all the heat talks, vinyl car seats are lightweight when compared to leather car seats.

What are the Best Ways to Keep Leather Seats Cool?

Now, for instance, let us say that you parked your car under direct sunlight, and now you cannot sit inside since your leather car seats are boiling up. How can you fix this situation? Well, worry not as we will now discuss several methods on how to cool down leather car seats if they are hot.

Step#1: Open all the doors and windows

When you keep a pot on the stove with the gas turned on, you will notice that it will be much hotter when compared to another pot that does not have its lid on and is letting all the steam out. Similar to that situation, when your car’s doors and windows are all closed up, your car will start to heat up and due to improper ventilation, the heat will not be able to escape and will start to build up inside your car. The more the heat builds up, the hotter your car’s leather seats will get. Sometimes, it might get so hot that a few plastics and items might just slightly melt due to the immense amount of heat that has been trapped inside the car.

Therefore, to make sure that your car does not heat up and turn into a hot boiling pot, you need to make sure that while parking your car, you always park it under a shade of some sort. During hot days, a shade might be fully effective, so you will need to open all the doors and windows to let the heat out and keep them open for several minutes so that the heat can leave quickly due to the airflow from the outside environment and in turn, allows some fresh air to enter your car.

Step S#2: Turn on the AC at maximum power

Once you have tried out method #1, you might start to notice that it takes quite some time for this process to be successful, as it is a time consuming process. However, not everyone might have that kind of time and needs to hurry up. In such cases, you can take a much quicker approach to this situation and speed it up. Once you have opened up all the doors and windows, you can start up your car, turn on the air conditioner, and set them to maximum power so that there’s very strong cold airflow inside the car and this helps with the ventilation process.

While an air conditioner might seem like a good and quick process, you need to remember that they are also harmful for the environment since it plays an important role in global warming and harming the ozone layer. However, if you use it for a short time, then it isn’t that harmful but just try to keep it to a minimum level and not overdo it.

Method #3: Tint your windows

When we can’t see anything due to the sun’s blinding rays, we tend to take out our sunglasses and wear that to provide a better view of our environment as the sunglasses are tinted and reduced the sun’s glare aimed at us and our eye. Similar to that situation, we need to tint our car windows to make sure that there’s almost little to no sunlight entering the car as the less the amount of sunlight enters our car, the cooler it will be inside and not boiling up.

Too much sunlight can also slowly decolorize your car’s leather seats so it’s better if you tint up your car’s windows.  Tinting a window is not an easy job so it will be wise if you take it to a professional shop and get it patched up from there, as there will be no mistakes since they have done it thousands of times.

Conclusion:

To wrap things up, we have discussed on does leather car seats get hot during summer and we have made some interesting and helpful points that will definitely prove to be effective. If you minimize the amount of sunlight that enters your car, then your leather car seats will not heat up and provide you with a cool and comfortable journey. While leather car seats tend to get hot during summer, they are still a comfortable seating choice and give your car a posh look when compared to cloth, wool, and vinyl so why would one not want leather as their car seat, right?

We all face different kinds of problems every day and we at Hacks for Cars try our best to help everyone with their problems and make sure that they leave our site with a smile on their face. I hope that this piece of the article was able to help with keeping your leather car seats cool. If you have any other questions about other problems, then you can refer to our other articles, which might help you.