"Leather" coming apart and peeling

Alan_Hepburn wrote:

Bruce Brown wrote:
I could be wrong but the stuff thats failing isn't bonded leather.

If it's peeling it's bonded leather. Bonded leather is made by grinding up all the scraps left over after making "real" leather products, then adding the resulting powder to water to make a slurry. That slurry is then sprayed onto a fabric substrate and allowed to dry. When the manufacturing process takes shortcuts - either using poor quality materials, or just sloppy processes in general, the top layer will eventually separate from the substrate.

There is also a man-made product with the trade name "UltraLeather" - it is a higher quality product that seems to not be used much anymore.

We had a sofa and love seat set in our house made with bonded leather. It started peeling right as the warranty ended and the company would not do anything; they said it's "normal wear and tear". In contrast, our 2007 Bounder has UltraLeather upholstery and it still look great after over 12 years and 45,000 miles.