Daveyap

I am not trying to shoot you down here but I think you are missing the point that Sam the Man is trying to make here. A good leather sofa will certainly last beyond 5 years provided it is well maintained by the users. You will not be able to avoid having those customers who do not have the time or attitude to treat their leather sofas properly. Within 5 years, their leather sofa will give them problems and it is a no brainer to be able to guess correctly that EL will have to resort to their warranty exclusion clauses to repudiate liability. In the early 90s when I was in my early 20s, my parents bought an expensive semi aniline leather sofa set for the living room costing $11K. I killed the leather sofa within a year because I bought the wrong type of leather conditioner. My parents didn't feel the pain but I felt it for years after that. Now if you have customers who maintained the leather sofa the wrong way and killed it like what I did within 5 years, would you be resorting to the warranty exclusion clause too?

Hmmmmm, let me think about it. But I have been dishing out leather advice via private email to those who has been messaging me for help.

I remembered those days in the 1970s when I was still living with my parents and we had a termite problem. It took us forever to get rid of them creepy crawlies. You can actually hear them through the wooden structures, slowly but steadily eating away at the wood.

OK, now that we know you are indeed a genuine EL customer, please do update us on all material developments as I am sure it would be greatly appreciated by many of us.

A few years back, I received a Hyflux Water Filtration Pitcher Model P18 as a house warming gift. I have 3 toy dogs at home. I have always given them water straight from the tap. I decided to filter their drinking water using this Hyflux Filtration system thinking that it must be good for them to drink specially treated water. About a month later, while I was grooming my dogs and examining their teeth as part of my routine, I discovered to my shock and horror that their teeth had turned completely black. I brought them to the vet and he said he need to scale and polish their canine teeth. All my 3 dogs had to undergo general anesthesia as the vet is unable to clean their teeth while they are awake because they will struggle with the vet during the procedure. I had to spent $600 in order to save their teeth because if left untreated, their teeth will decay and drop out permanently and all of us will have **** for the rest of the dogs lives. You don't need to be an expert to know that the Hyflux Filtration system filtered out all the fluoride from the tap water resulting in my dog's teeth turning black and decaying. I am still using the Hyflux Pitcher for my own consumption but never again for the dogs after that costly experience.

Can you please kindly post pictures of the problem sofa and quote your invoice or some other reference number as proof in order to prevent others from accusing you of being a competitor posing as an unhappy customer in here to tarnish EL's image and reputation.

I mentioned earlier in one of my postings that I actually contacted the factory representatives or authorized distributors in Alibaba who were representing several furniture manufacturers based in China and Malaysia. I was given a formal quotation of USD 650 for just a single piece of Full leather Club Chair. It was on FOB Terms so that means I still have to arrange for the shipping. I decided not to take the risk as I cannot physically inspect the actual piece prior to parting with my money. I think it is just not worth it to import in your own furniture as there is no real cost savings due to lack of economies of scale. $200 can definitely get you PU Leather because it is dirt cheap as it is sold per meter roll with a usual minimum order quantity of 500-1000 meters. It is really not easy to distinguish PU Leather from real leather just on sight alone as the technology has really improved tremendously over the years.

I reread my own posting and realized I was not being clear enough. As my 3 seater is a teak wood frame, I am only just re holstering my single large foam seat and 2 back cushions. The total cost is as stated above. And yet we have forum members telling us they got a good deal when it is more likely the furniture retailer securing a great deal at our expense.

Yet another victim of PU Leather, also known as Bi Cast Leather. I am also a victim of PU Leather but in a different way, I invested in those stupid S Chip China stocks and one of which was Sinotech Fibre, one of the largest manufacturers of PU Leather. Lost $25K on just this counter alone I now termed it as PUI PUI Leather. All local furniture retailers who order their furniture from these China Con Man Factories ought to be

I bought most of my custom design teak furniture from Echoes of the East. For those who are into custom designing their own teak wood furniture, the shop is located at 374 East Coast Road S428983. Look for the lady boss called Mary. She is a very staunch Christian so naturally she would be very honest and I have no issues with any of my furniture all these years. For those who like to change their furniture every few years, then teak wood furniture is not for you as they are built to last a lifetime.

I am trying to remain objective here. I think Jeanius has a point here but we do not need EL to post their full warranty card here as it is their right to maintain some business confidentiality especially in online forums. We only need them to post the part that says the leather is covered by a 5 years warranty. In my honest opinion, I think I would not be that bothered whether it is made from Ox or Buffalo so long as it is good quality bovine leather at a fair price.

Thicker leather for $200? I doubt you will get real leather for that price unless it is split leather. Anyway, split leather is better than PU Leather (Bi-cast).

Regret to inform you that what you bought is not real leather. Looks like PU leather. I have seen far too many of these fake leather sofas being disposed at my lift landing by my neighbors. It is ironic that your leather cleaning method is actually absolutely correct for both real and fake leathers and yet you are being penalized.

That is why I always make sure it is COW Leather that I am getting Anyway, I doubt EL will be able to provide a 5 year warranty for their leather sofa without exclusion clauses. If it starts peeling or cracking during the 4th and 5th year, they will argue it is fair wear and tear, so it is not covered under the warranty because YOU DID NOT TAKE PROPER CARE OF THE LEATHER BY USING THE RIGHT LEATHER CONDITIONERS PRODUCTS ETC ETC.....

If I were you, I would prudently send the 2 seater back just to be on the safe side as it is likely to have the problem too given that it is from the same batch.

I have no idea how come they fall apart as I don't wish to get nosy and invade into my tenant's privacy by checking on the state of the funiture during the lease. I tried leasing furniture from those rental companies but they are also quite expensive.

That is the exact problem I am facing now. When my outgoing tenants leaves the apartments after a year or two, the incoming tenants would insist on new furniture because they saw that the Ikea furniture in the unit cannot make it anymore and they tell me that I should change it for them since Ikea is CHEAP! Their prices are not Cheap if you benchmarked it against their build quality.

Daveyap, edeimar has just posted a reply to a topic that you have subscribed to titled "Any Reviews Of Ikea Sofas?". ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- QUOTE ---------- You are right of course. I know of some people who just loves to buy cheap disposable furniture like Ikea so that they can keep changing them. If Ikea were ever to launch an IPO here, I will be among the first to buy them since their gross profit margin is extremely high. ----------------------------- Its quite obvious you are from executive living.. kind of a shame actually ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The topic can be found here: http://www.renotalk.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=41530&view=getnewpost Hey Edeimar, I received this in my email. Did you just accuse me of being from Executive Living?! Please do not associate me with furniture salespeople in here. I am just an ordinary consumer and I got nothing to hide since I AM USING MY REAL NAME unlike most other people in here. If you bother to read all my postings in here, other than my leather office chair which I bought for home use, the rest of my home furniture are teakwood that I purchased from a small furniture shop along East Coast Road. And I also buy crappy Ikea furniture for my investment properties. I DO NOT RECOMMEND ANYONE TO BUY ANY HOME FURNITURE FROM ANY FURNITURE RETAILER BECAUSE GOOD FURNITURE RETAILERS ARE FEW AND FAR BETWEEN! Cheers Dave Yap

This is not about me being bitter about Ikea furniture. Why can't they make value for money furnitures that can last a long time? Is it too much to ask of them to do just that or does this come across as an unreasonable request. Anyway, I only buy Ikea for my investment rental properties as every incoming and outgoing tenant expects new furniture and stuff.

You are right of course. I know of some people who just loves to buy cheap disposable furniture like Ikea so that they can keep changing them. If Ikea were ever to launch an IPO here, I will be among the first to buy them since their gross profit margin is extremely high.

Yes and No. If there is any warranty for the leather, it will not exceed one year. The furniture shop will not be that stupid to give you a warranty for PU Leather. Real leather even when defective will not peel the way it was peeling on your sofa as documented by you in those photos. Real leather will crack if not well taken care of, they don't peel off in such huge strips. Over the years, I have seen so many neighbors of mine disposing of their nice expensive leather furniture at the lift landing barely a year after purchase because they were peeling and flaking off like yours.

Actually, almost all the furniture shops can do custom study desk. It is only a matter of shopping around for the best prices.

I can start to imagine the huge volume of new business/customers EL will be getting if they carry on using this forum to resolve issues with their customers.

Because the original factory protective wrappings have been removed and disposed off when they delivered the furniture to you. If EL bring your sofa back, they risk damaging other parts of it unless EL comes with all those cardboard, foam or bubble wraps that those relocation/movers always used when moving their clients stuff. Also, they are unlikely to bring the sofa back all the way to their factory in Malaysia just for a broken thread. They may outsourced it to a third party locally and anything can happen along the way. Sofa can be damaged while being lifted up and down the lorry, while entering the lift and scrapping the sides of the corridor wall etc...etc, get the picture?

Frankly, I will not be able to accept it too because it is white thread against a dark background and an eyesore to me. But this has nothing to do with poor workmanship because is obvious from the picture that the thread was damaged by something/someone after the sofa had been manufactured. You risk further damage to the sofa if you want EL to bring it back and have them removed all those stitches in order to give it a new stitch.