awful seats

[Tom Reingold]

I spent a lot of hours in my car this weekend. These seats are awful.
What are my options? I could take a look at some strap-on cushions from
a catalog. Are any of them any good? I could even consider getting
expensive seats, or at least one for the driver.

Who here agrees that Subaru seats are lousy?

What have you done to improve them?

This is a 2000 Legacy L wagon, with cloth seats.

My main complaint is with the bottoms. They can't angle up or down. I
would tip them back so that there is more thigh support. I am getting
pains in my butt and even a little sciatic pain, which I almost never
get. It would also be nice if the seat bottoms were deeper, i.e. if they
came closer to my knees, but I'm sure that would be expensive to remedy.

Thanks.

Tom

 

[Jim Stewart]

I spent a lot of hours in my car this weekend. These seats are awful.
What are my options? I could take a look at some strap-on cushions from
a catalog. Are any of them any good? I could even consider getting
expensive seats, or at least one for the driver.

Who here agrees that Subaru seats are lousy?

Not I. I have a '99 Legacy Outback wagon.
I'm 53 and I've owned over a half-dozen cars
before the Subaru. The Subaru is the only
car where I feel better after I finish driving
than before I start.

What have you done to improve them?

This is a 2000 Legacy L wagon, with cloth seats.

My main complaint is with the bottoms. They can't angle up or down. I
would tip them back so that there is more thigh support. I am getting
pains in my butt and even a little sciatic pain, which I almost never
get. It would also be nice if the seat bottoms were deeper, i.e. if they
came closer to my knees, but I'm sure that would be expensive to remedy.

I know that pain. Sorry the Subaru seats
don't work for you.

 

[BRH]

Not I. I have a '99 Legacy Outback wagon.
I'm 53 and I've owned over a half-dozen cars
before the Subaru. The Subaru is the only
car where I feel better after I finish driving
than before I start.



I know that pain. Sorry the Subaru seats
don't work for you.

I agree. I suffer from back pain often and the driver's seat in my 01
Forester actuaklly seesm to alleviate it. I just have to make sure that
my butt is pushed right back into the back of the seat (no slouching....)

To me, the comfort of the seats is one of the plusses of the Forester.

 

[Coggo]

Tom,

I have a Forester GT (in Australia) and I have a bad back. The seat base is
adjustable in angle and shape, which helps a bit - maybe you could get one
of those types of seats. Even with the adjustable seat, I still get some
pain on a long trip. I am 6' tall, and find the seat a bit small overall for
me. I have another vehicle, a 1 ton work truck, which has really good seats
(Recaro) fitted, and I can drive all day in that and never feel a twinge of
pain - it is worth spending a bit of money for decent seats if you drive a
lot.

Dave

 

[jabario]

The seats in my 04 OBW are the best of any car I've owned. No pain
watever.

 

[H]

How about losing some weight and getting fit, that usually helps better than
whining and complaining and buying things or taking pills ya fat yank.

 

[kstahl]

I spent a lot of hours in my car this weekend. These seats are awful.
What are my options? I could take a look at some strap-on cushions from
a catalog. Are any of them any good? I could even consider getting
expensive seats, or at least one for the driver.

Who here agrees that Subaru seats are lousy?

What have you done to improve them?

This is a 2000 Legacy L wagon, with cloth seats.

My main complaint is with the bottoms. They can't angle up or down. I
would tip them back so that there is more thigh support. I am getting
pains in my butt and even a little sciatic pain, which I almost never
get. It would also be nice if the seat bottoms were deeper, i.e. if they
came closer to my knees, but I'm sure that would be expensive to remedy.

Thanks.

Tom

Try getting someone else to drive the car and then run
behind it for a mile or so. You will then be very grateful
for the Subaru seat.

 

[Larry Van Wormer]

I spent a lot of hours in my car this weekend. These seats are awful.
What are my options? I could take a look at some strap-on cushions from
a catalog. Are any of them any good? I could even consider getting
expensive seats, or at least one for the driver.

Who here agrees that Subaru seats are lousy?

Well, the seats in my Subaru are just fine for me, but I've had cars
with poor seats in the past, and made some changes that helped quite a bit.

To address a problem with seat bottom angle, I'd suggest you look at the
structure of the seat, and try to design some spacers that will raise
the front of the seat. Likely a bit of welding of the seat frame will be
needed, once you work out the correct angle. It's typically not very
hard to remove a seat and work on it, although I of course don't know
the exact details of the seat frames in your car.

If you don't like do-it-yourself, an expensive but very effective
solution is to go with something like Recaro seating, as someone else
mentioned. I once had those in a car, best seats I've ever encountered.

I've had occasion to try the cushions you mention above, but never found
one I liked.

Larry Van Wormer

 

[Paul]

Try getting someone else to drive the car and then run behind it for a
mile or so. You will then be very grateful for the Subaru seat.

1993 subaru impreza - quite often i take four hour trips...no pain
whatsover.

Paul



--
Paul Johnson
Graduate Student - Mechanical Engineering
University of Florida - Gainesville, Fl
http://plaza.ufl.edu/redboots

Reclaim Your Inbox!
http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird

 

[John Rethorst]

I spent a lot of hours in my car this weekend. These seats are awful.
ŠThis is a 2000 Legacy L wagon, with cloth seats.

My 01 Outback's seats are pretty nice. I have the lumbar support level tilted to
max, and wish it would tilt a little more though.

 

[hippo]

BRH wrote:

I agree. I suffer from back pain often and the driver's seat in my 01
Forester actuaklly seesm to alleviate it. I just have to make sure that

my butt is pushed right back into the back of the seat (no slouching....)


To me, the comfort of the seats is one of the plusses of the Forester.

Ny wife and I both find the 2000 OB seats great but cushion is fully
adjustable for tilt and height. The Subaru lambswool throwover seatcovers
have a slightly padded backing and seem to give a little extra support.

BTW - Does anyone out there know if it's possible to put riser blocks on
the seat runners? That might alleviate Tom's problem cheaply as long as
he's not too tall. Cheers

 

[B a r r y]

Who here agrees that Subaru seats are lousy?

My '01 OBW's weren't my favorite, but I won't go so far as to call them
"lousy".

What have you done to improve them?

I sold the car.

Seats are a personal thing. My absolute favorite are Toyota TRD pickup
bucket seats (NOT the base bench), but others hate them.

 

[/\\/ / & E]

I spent a lot of hours in my car this weekend. These seats are awful. What
are my options? I could take a look at some strap-on cushions from a
catalog. Are any of them any good? I could even consider getting expensive
seats, or at least one for the driver.

Who here agrees that Subaru seats are lousy?

What have you done to improve them?

This is a 2000 Legacy L wagon, with cloth seats.

My main complaint is with the bottoms. They can't angle up or down. I
would tip them back so that there is more thigh support. I am getting
pains in my butt and even a little sciatic pain, which I almost never get.
It would also be nice if the seat bottoms were deeper, i.e. if they came
closer to my knees, but I'm sure that would be expensive to remedy.

Thanks.

Tom

If you spent as much time in the gym as your car your fat arse would fit
better!

 

[Chris Werner]

The first thing that I noticed about my 2005 Outback XT were how comfortable
the 6-way, bucket type seats are. I'am 6'4" and I find them very
comfortable and produce no pain.

Chris

 

[Wandering Willy]

The base model Legacies did not have adjustable height seats. I have
a 98 Brighton. My wife hates my seats. I have on occasion
experienced minor back pain after 10hr driving in it....my wife has an
Obusforme for her back. If it wasn't 8yrs old, I'd consider buying
seats from a junked L version, with the height adjustment. But I'll
probably replace it in a couple more years, and my days of 10hr drives
are over, with a change in employment.

That said, the seats are still far superior to the appalling stuff
Ford uses. My brother tells me that his wife's Escape has seats that
are just as bad as his old explorer. Absolute crap.

 

[Florian Feuser /FFF/]

The base model Legacies did not have adjustable height seats. I have
a 98 Brighton. My wife hates my seats. I have on occasion
experienced minor back pain after 10hr driving in it....my wife has an
Obusforme for her back. If it wasn't 8yrs old, I'd consider buying
seats from a junked L version, with the height adjustment. But I'll
probably replace it in a couple more years, and my days of 10hr drives
are over, with a change in employment.

I used to own a 95 L Wagon - no adjustable driver's seat there.

Subaru seats seem to be sensitive to being chewed up by heavier drivers.
Yet even when new, they're not exactly orthopedic like those in a newer
VW.

My next car after the 95 L was a 96 GT wagon which had great seats -
perhaps because it was driven by a woman or featherweight.

The seats in my current 98 GT wagon are pretty much shot - I would
definitively like to replace them.

florian /FFF/

 

[Tom Reingold]

Ny wife and I both find the 2000 OB seats great but cushion is fully
adjustable for tilt and height. The Subaru lambswool throwover seatcovers
have a slightly padded backing and seem to give a little extra support.

BTW - Does anyone out there know if it's possible to put riser blocks on
the seat runners? That might alleviate Tom's problem cheaply as long as
he's not too tall. Cheers

Maybe my problem is that I have the stripped down model and it has worse
seats than the other models.

What are riser blocks? What do they do? I'm short-legged and
long-torsoed. So I sit close to the steering wheel but my head is very
high. I'm 5'9" tall (176 cm).

Tom

 

[Tom Reingold]

How about losing some weight and getting fit, that usually helps better than
whining and complaining and buying things or taking pills ya fat yank.

You know what country I live in but nothing else about me. I'm actually
pretty thin and athletic, and I don't take pills.

Tom

 

[John Varela]

You know what country I live in but nothing else about me. I'm actually
pretty thin and athletic, and I don't take pills.

"H", too cowardly to use his real name, appears to be Canadian. He can
safely be ignored.

 

[John Varela]

If you spent as much time in the gym as your car your fat arse would fit
better!

Aren't Germans the fattest people in Europe?