How well leather or Softex holds up over time has a lot more to do with how well you maintain it than it does the material itself. Both will hold up great if you maintain it and are careful with it. Both will look like trash if you don't maintain it or subject it to a lot of abuse.

I've had both- and generally take care of my cars pretty well. My experience is that they both wear at about the same rate... at least in my cars- and I condition the seats four times per year, don't eat in my car, and do my best to keep the seats in good condition.

How well will it hold up over seventeen years? Who knows. I don't think that Softex has been used that long yet- I think Toyota started using it about ten or twelve years ago. On older Toyotas with Softex interiors- some look awful and some look fine- again, it likely depends on how well the material is maintained. Similarly, if you look at older Toyotas in a parking lot that have leather- some will still be in great condition, while others are ripped, torn, stained, and are dried out... again- it has a lot to do with how well the owner maintained the leather. If you park it in the sun each day and never treat/condition it- and are hard on the seats- then they will look horrible after just a few short years. Leather that is maintained can look great year after year.

Cloth fabric, other than stains and rips- probably will hold up better over the years if you never want to spend time cleaning and maintaining the seats. Other than an occasional vacuum, I never had to do much of anything with the fabric material in my 2007 Camry Hybrid... and that cloth still looked pretty decent after fifteen years and 180,000 miles.

 

We had a car with Softex. Now my wife has a Lexus with NuLuxe - basically a more expensive version of Softex.
Both are cheap vinyl, not comparable with real leather. Softex is cheap-cheap vinyl. NuLuxe is marginally better, so only cheap vinyl.
None of them will last 17 years. Maybe if you keep your car in a garage and drive 50 miles once a week.
After 5 years, Softex was all worn out. Front seats were shiny like patent leather. Rear seats, which we rarely used, were covered with a white hue as if somebody spread talcum or flour on them. And it was cracking on the parts that have to flex like the side trim of the bottom cushions.
We had cars with real leather before and there is no comparison. The leather seats in our 6 years old BMW looked and felt like new. It took less than a year for Softex to look worse than the old BMW leather.

 

Again, I think that it all depends on how well you take care of the seats.

If in doubt, go to a local Toyota dealer in your area and start looking at 5-10 year-old Toyotas that have Softex seats. The 4Runner has used it in lower trim levels for a while, the Rav4 has used it on higher trims for a while. Highlander XLEs have had Softex since 2020.

I don't think that you can compare a mainstream brand to a luxury brand. Given the price difference, I would expect that BMW leather would look nicer than Toyota Softex- right away and as it ages. Different mainstream brands can have different quality too- the leather in my wife's 2021 Passport looks pretty rough after two years, while the leather in my 2023 Highlander looks as good as new after a year. The seats in both are cleaned monthly and conditioned quarterly with leather cleaner/conditioner.

The Softex seats in my last Highlander looked fine- again it was cleaned/conditioned on the same schedule as my other vehicles. One of my friends has a 2017 Rav4 with Softex- and those seats still look fine.

My only gripe after living with Softex in my last Highlander was the fact that despite Toyota's claim that they are "cooler" than real leather in summer, I still found that they got really warm when the vehicle was in the direct sun. After being parked in the direct sun at work all day, the gray Softex was really hot. My 2023 Highlander has black leather- which also gets hot in the sun, but my 2023 has ventilated seats- which make a big difference. Toyota offers Softex with ventilation in some models- but not in the Highlander.

 

Thanks for the ideas, all 👍

 

I visited a BMW dealership and the salesperson there indicated that the "fake leather" they offer is way more durable than leather. It's a different brand, I know, but it's starting to sway me toward "fake leather" instead of going to the effort to find real leather.

 

Personally, I never trust a salesperson. Their number #1 is always to sell you the car that's in stock... regardless of which features that it has.

I've had Softex and I've had real leather- it's all about personal preference.