La-Z-Boy Bad QualityAuthor: Dave Date: 05.18.25 - 5:31pm Lazyboy used to be a very good name in furniture and they still charge a premium price. When I went in the sales lady assured me they used premium top grain leather for everywhere you body touches. Vinyl was used on the sides and back, no touch zones, to help save on price. This was called leather match. I was expecting to be buying a 20 year chair. I searched online reviews and really didnt find anything bad about them. So I went ahead and bought a leather match $1800 Randall recliner I have probably used it for about 11 months, and already the "top grain leather" is starting to flake off. So why oghh why would you put a non durable fake grain layer on top of real world renowned durable top grain leather? You never would unless there is some kind of scam afoot. It can only come down to cost savings on their end and maximizing profit. So, I lifted a couple staples from under the foot rest and took a couple swatches to look at under the microscope. I also went back into my local retail store and presented as a new buyer to hear the spiel again. Exact same sales pitch. Then I showed her the pictures. "Oghh Ive never seen anything like that"... here call customer care. So I started researching leather and testing my material.
So I did some more tests. I tested several panels of the chair with acetone, they all behaved the same, but It is not penetrating the PU layer. On the bench I tested the swatch with a hot air rework station. The PU layer did not really respond, but did turn a slight shade of pink. Chatgpt says this could be in line with a PU layer. I did flex tests in compression on edge grain to see how the fibers responded and compared this to the known top grain. The chair leather was extremely loose and fibers mostly parallel. I sanded down the real and chair leather to see if I could discern the layers. Behaved nothing alike. They claimed the body and hair oils were responsible for flaking on the chair. That i didnt take proper care of it. So I applied vegetable oil to one of the acetone stripped spots and let it sit overnight. No effect. I went to an upholstery shop and showed him the pictures. Resounding, that is not top grain leather. What if they put a sealing layer on it? Didnt really have a direct answer other than real top grain leather does not need that. One of the flaking spots does kind look like top grain leather underneath and is a dark leather. But when I acetone tested a far corner of the same panel I got the light brown adhesive layer. The adhesive layer looks to be an even 1/64" thick. The overall leather layer is 1/16" I bought two of these chairs. They are comfortable and I can sleep in them. But I do feel like I was defrauded. When I get back up north I am going to take some samples to a tannery and see if I can get positive identification and pay him a couple hundred bucks for a definitive primer. I did order some split grain off of amazon as well, but it was heavily processed and stiff as cardboard. Cant tell if it had been dehydrated and looked like it was sent through heavy rollers to compress it. I will have a couple more videos to add to this research. Its not a horrible chair, but its not an 1800 chair and it should not be sold with lies. For every one person they get, they are nuking their reputation in at least a 30 person radius. Search youtube for my videos listed above. Very few bad reviews. Now check facebook groups the complaints and endless with this same problem is presentation. Mismatches like this arent mistakes. Numerous users are also reporting that Lazyboy is not allowing any bad reviews on their site. I used those skewed reviews as part of my purchasing decision. Pretty sure this is not legal under deceptive advertising laws. Comments: (2)On 05.20.25 - 10:20am Dave wrote:
On 05.21.25 - 2:00pm Dave wrote:
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