Furniture and Furnishings - Thoughts on Bi-Cast Leather Furniture, Please?

Hi - My hubby just bought 2 bi-cast leather chairs from Costco, and I'm just not sure about them. I've found mixed reviews of this material, which I understand to be split leather bonded to both a base material and a polyurethane skin. I've read that the substance is good for light wear with potential spillage - since the surface essentially is plastic, liquids and such can be easily wiped up. But I've also read that bi-cast is prone to scratching, and once it's scratched there is nothing that will help it. I also found a pretty negative review of bi-cast leather on a New Zealand site - it was informative, but perhaps biased a bit.

Anyway, what do you all know? My hubby and I have no children. Petwise only our cats go on the furniture - they are all big kitties and have all their claws.

Thank you in advnace - I appreciate your help!

Your information sounds accurate and the chairs are probably well worth the price you paid
A Bi-cast from Costco isn't going to match an all-leather from a furniture store in quality and durabilty, but then it won't cost as much either

We just bought two of these couches and after 4 months of sitting on them they are ripping. I am not sure if it is just the brand, but I sure won't be buying any more couches with this type of material.

Hope that this helps...

I bought two couches in 'bi-cast' leather and 6 'full' leather dining chairs. I had tried to get info on bi-cast before buying but never had any luck since it hadnt been around long enough for anyone to give a accurate review on its durability. Let me state clearly for anyone considering to buy BI-CAST - that it is a VERY inferior product. We had the coating crack and lift in several areas within 18months - all which cannot be successfully repaired (I contacted a professional leather repairer). If you are hoping to buy for the future - do not buy bi-cast. You will be sadly disappointed. Luckily the store I bought it from had a 2 year warranty on material and so I have been able to return them. As for the full leather dining chairs (bought from another store) they cracked too - it turned out they were bi-cast leather as well - but were sold as 'full-leather' . The lesson in my story - make sure you ask lots of questions and get some sort of written confirmation that your product IS high quality leather. ALSO make sure you have at least a 2yr warranty on your leather - because if it is bi-cast it will start to show at about 18 months. Good luck!

As someone who repairs and restores leather for a living, I can heartily second (and third, etc.) the "buyer beware" experiences that are represented in this thread. Bi-cast leather (or leather composite, in some cases), while obviously a marketing success (as it is everywhere, now), is not a material engineered for longevity. Failure rates are astounding. We've had pieces in the shop that exhibited rips or delamination within weeks of purchase, brought in by retailers and customers alike. Repairs are typically inadvisable, and cost-prohibitive, given the price point of the initial purchase. While some light surface scratching on SOME types of bi-cast can be mitigated by heat, the bulk of the damage that it exhibits is difficult to repair, even for professionals. I've actually tried to put together a DIY bi-cast repair system, but it is a material that fails in so many different ways that I can't get a comprehensive package together. If I could, I think I'd be a rich man...