Is Alcantara easy to maintain? Is it kid friendly?

[dg1981]

Anyone know anywhere that sells this material to refinish the seats? After 100k miles, my jeans have successfully worn a hole in it on the drivers side. :(

ANY automotive reupholsterer (sp?) can do this, and it will be of equal quality and finish as OEM. Search, someone actually did it on here for a b6/b7.

You have to get it from Recaro I think. I remeber someone tracking it down a while back. It was hard to do and very expensive to obtain OE stuff. If I ever redo mine, they will be done in black alcantara

False. Alcantara can be had in a seemingly endless variety of colors from any supplier of leather or textiles, but it is a premium material so I can't be sure on price...

snopyro: to be honest, I think we are witnessing in this thread a bit of what we see on the forums in general: negative experiences are often shared, while you don't hear people say "engine NOT blown at 105K/my alcantara is holding up as good as ever!". I personally think alcantara is an outstanding alternative to leather and is both appropriate and effective in automotive applications. There is a reason high end race seats often come in alcantara. And, it is one of the number one reasons I have an S4 (had it in my B6, have it in my B7) to begin with.