UN-comfortable seats

I started a thread a week or two ago about which factory seats are comfortable for us enthusiasts since we will pay attention to these aspects of cars. Another thread gave me this idea. Which factory seats are uncomfortable? I especially want to hear about the ones that surprised you about the discomfort or if everyone loves a certain seat yet they send pain straight to your back. I find my E36 standard seat uncomfortable. The seats are leather, which I don't like. It is a little light on the side bolstering. The seat bottom feels a little worn out, which is understandable. But the worst part about them is that the thigh bolstering kills my thighs, especially on long trips. I'm going to need a different seat since I'm going to keep the car for a while.

I never could get comfortable in the RSX-S seats (the cloth-covered seats in my daughter's '06 Civic are almost as bad). The seat bottom was too flat, so I kept sliding forward in the seat. On long trips, I'd get major back pain from constantly pressing against the dead pedal to shift myself back. I tried a Miata-style foam-ectomy, but the seat didn't have enough padding to do any good. I finally solved the problem by trading the car for a Miata.

My wife's 2007 Accord has flat bottomed seats also. Works for my wife (no comments please...) but me, not so much...

Kind of off topic, but my office chair. The material is slick and if I make an effort to sit with my back against the back rest, I continually slide forward to a slouching position. I either need to add a lap belt or some of the tool box drawer lining the bottom.

I can't name any seats that are universally reviled. It's kind of a mix of individually anatomy and the seat. My parents are getting older and more creaky and seats are somewhere close to the #1 most important thing in the car for them. They hate anything with headrests that protrude forward of the seat back (Fords, particularly) or longer seat bottoms, but I like both those things.

On my E36 M3, if I'm close enough to the wheel to lay my wrist on top, my elbow always hits the bolster of the seat when I turn right, so I have to drive with my elbows stuck up. That wasn't a problem in the almost identical the sport seats my 328is had. Maybe the seat back is twisted slightly?

WAIT - WE'RE NOT ALLOWED TO BE NEGATIVE ANY MORE.

On topic, I've never really been comfortable in any Ford I've ever driven. Not that that's a huge sample or anything.

Worst was my boss's 2-gen Probe GT. The seats looked great from the outside. I couldn't spend 15 minutes in one without feeling like there was a steel rod across my spine about 4" above my kidneys. I assume this was Ford's idea of "lumbar support".

Duke - I found the F150 seats from 04 and on to be quite comfortable. The Escape has some of the worst seats ever though. Also, my '00 Insight seats have very little padding and no springs.

The first-gen Saturn S-series had decent seats in both the SOHC (Sx1) and DOHC (Sx2) versions, but when they brought out the second-gen in 1996, they made the Sx1 seats awful. The bottom cushion is squishy and unsupportive and the backrest has no lumbar support whatsoever. They should have just kept using the first-gen Sx1 seat.

Last-gen Cavalier seats are pretty bad too.

MIL used to have a honda/isuzu suv. Short bottom, so crappy thigh support, flat and miserable for all but the shortest drives.

Duke wrote: WAIT - WE'RE NOT ALLOWED TO BE NEGATIVE ANY MORE. On topic, I've never really been comfortable in any Ford I've ever driven. Not that that's a huge sample or anything. Worst was my boss's 2-gen Probe GT. The seats looked great from the outside. I couldn't spend 15 minutes in one without feeling like there was a steel rod across my spine about 4" above my kidneys. I assume this was Ford's idea of "lumbar support".

Those Probe seats suck unbelievably bad, ESPECIALLY if they're leather.

I also abhorred the leather "surfboards" in the MSM. So terrible.

I hated the seats in our old 98 Honda Civic was anything over 20 minutes. The wife found them just fine though. My old Volvo 244 had crappy seats but they were missing 1/4 of the foam.

The old cheap ass standard bench seats in Ford trucks were the absolute worse. I had a 76, 79, 80ish 85 and 86 (all company trucks) and those things caused me back problems when I was a young and vigous man.

My wife has a 2014 Forester. I really like this car, but when I'm driving for more than an hour I'm sure that I'd confess to any crime ever committed. It's just that effective as a torture device.

When we got married my wife had a 92 Celica GT with manual seats and I could never get comfortable in them. I really liked the rest of the car, but those seats.

My wife recently test-drove a Cadillac CTS. The seats were hard and there was a big seam running straight down your back that got uncomfortable within 20 minutes. This particular vehicle had the cooling seats, which may have been the source of the problem.

My early E-Type has notoriously uncomfortable (but great-looking) seats. The prior owner had a round pillow upholstered like the rest of the car that makes a big difference when placed in the lumbar region. However, with that car, you're suffering for the art.

My parents have a 2011/12(?) Civic. What a crap car. Noisy, buzzy, seats are uncomfortable. My '86 Accord was a better car with a smoother ride and more comfortable seats and it was about the same size.

Being positive, the cloth seats in my '03 Dodge Ram 2500 are great-- like big lazyboys. And my wife's Mercedes E class (which she bought after dismissing the Cadillac) has great seats.

The last 370z I drove had seats that absolutely killed my back. No one else on staff had a problem with them, but for me, the car was pure torture to drive. I could only drive it for 20 minutes or so at a time--- pure agony. Weird, as I've never had a problem like that before or since, and I don't have chronic back issues.

Ex MIL had a late model Lincoln TownCar (Platinum edition) with HORRIBLE seats. I had to drive it a few times and felt I was being beaten the whole time. Insanely uncomfortable for a "comfy luxury" car aimed at old people.

I hate the seats in my 01 Subaru Outback. They're the worst thing about the car.

I don't like the seats in my 05 MCS. My wife loves em. She's about 7 inches shorter than me- it could be a height thing. I'm also starting to fall out of love with the seats in my ms3, though that could be the fact that I've made the suspension thouroughly unpleasant for street use, on purpose.

My 1996 Honda Civic DX seats are... mediocre. They don't hurt my back anymore, but they are not good for more than 2 hours of driving at a time.

NC Miata. As much as I loved the car, the seats were almost unbearable.

/thread

The problem is everybody's body is different yet the seats have to be fairly generic and/or universal to accomadate tens (maybe hundreds) of thousands of bodies. It just isn't going to happen. A few may be happy, most won't. It's far better than it use to be and seats are more adjustable now too but ultimately you can't over come the huge varieties if body types. Don't get me wrong, there are some flat out bad seats out there( the NC Miata as previously mentioned) but in general more thought is put in to them than years ago. If you really want a good seat, have one custom made to you and just exchange in each new car you get. Ya have fun with that one! Hey, race drivers do it.

Generally I dislike all power seats. I never ever feel like I am in the correct position and am consistently fiddling with them. Though I can't name one seat that I actually felt was terrible.

I rented a Kia Soul a couple of years ago and hated the seats. I thought I would like the car, it seems like a perfect hatchback runabout, but those seats were a deal breaker.

I really like the recaro se s that I've got in my toyota hilux and fj40. The brides in swmbo's car are way narrow for me.

I really never got why people dont find an aftermarket seat that fits them and swap them from one car to the next. Sucks that oems are putting airbags in seats now.