Definitely bad ergonomics on the 2012 Prius seats. I think the seat cushion is too short, doesn't cover under knees and up/down adjustment makes it worse. Some kind of seat extender cushion or...yikes...install a power seat with infinite adjustment, tilting entire seat back would likely fix the problem but no such adjustment on the manual seat.
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The Four is $3k more than the Three? I never looked at the Three prices after I sat in a Four with the Softex seats. Dang nice Mike :tea:
$5K actually since you can't get the seats without the option packages so you see a $28K vs. $33K price differential on list price between Prius 3 and Prius 4 both with Solar roof, nav and Pearl paint. Local ergonomic seat outfit has a $135 auto seat cushion they say will fix the problem. Money back so no risk. Have a 2 hour drive coming up Thursday and I'll report back.
Get us some pictures of the seat cushion if you can. That may help out others that don't fit the factory seat so well. The Four Solar also has the higher end audio system with the larger LCD which I was after. I never did get to listen to the Three 6.1 audio system and wished I would have so I knew what the other options were. It took me a while to understand why the Solar option was so much higher priced on a Four verses the $1500 added to a Three, then I figured out it is the NAV/Audio system difference. That 7.1 system sounded damn nice when I plugged my iPhone into it and played my music :thumb: Anyhow, I am just as happy driving the rental Two's when I have to. The Prius in any flavor is an awesome car to drive Looking forward to hearing your feedback on the cushion mod. Mike :tea:
Try a custom auto upholstery shop. They can redo the seat bottom and back. I agree with everyone about sitting on your wallet if you do that. That can mess up your body alignment and cause issues. Good Luck.
Interesting idea. I'd need to know what is really wrong with the seat. I think the seat is not deep enough so no support under upper legs to spread the weight evenly. Be good to get an ergonomics person to say what is the problem in the design. It seems a common, long standing complaint so maybe the auto upholstery people have seen enough to know what works to fix it. Good idea and I'll try and find some auto upholstery shops.
WEOH: I sat in the 12 with the PS -- the seat is the same. The only thing the PS does is allow for more leg room ... but since they did not fix the limited movement of the steering wheel ... it does not do much. I would have spent the money on he 12 if I thought it would have done any good. I drove many SAABs w/o PS -- its the design of the seats not the power -- and the interaction with the steering wheel
I think the fit difference between different people is the person's body size. I fit the seats in the 3rd Gen Prius like peanut butter & jelly go together in a sandwich These seats are so comfortable that I can drive 14 hours with only gas, food and to hit the can breaks. Never had a sore behinder driving a Prius. Now sit me in a RAV4 and I will get a little discomfort about the time it needs a gas fill up. Mike
After a 5 hour drive I found out I have the same problem. Came from an Escape with power seats like someone else mentioned - I really miss them. Short trips are no problem, but on long trips the lack of support under my legs and added weight on my bottom starts to hurt! There's no way to adjust the manual seats to fix it. May have to try one of the mods mentioned.
I'm leaning towards one of the gel seat cushions like they have for wheelchair folks who are sitting in one spot all day long. In the WC, they use a reverse wedge, thicker under things than under the butt. With the lack of support under the thighs the issue (I think) that sounds like it will work. Can always turn the cushion around so thicker part is under the butt and thinner part under the thighs. Matching the dark gray cloth should be easy enough, should be unobtrusive.
** Proximal - i look forward to hearing about your drive report ... my husband complains about his bottom too on his frequent 4hour-ish trips.
No long trips in the Gen III yet, just a 2.5 hr trip. Adjusted seat and steering to a comfortable driving position. Much longer drives coming up later this Spring, so will find out if extended seat time is OK. Did quite a few long stints in the Gen II, and although it wasn't the best seat I've driven on, I can't say that I suffered. Anyone with serious Prius seat discomfort should look at aftermarket seats. How about Recaros. There are many others.
The seats with active head rests in rear end collision are a big part of the safety design of the car. I don't think I'd want to mess with the seat and potentially lose the safety of the seat design.
The seats are one of the reasons I stress to people that that must take this car for an extended drive ... it is a shame ... but the seats are an unnecessary weakness in the Prius. We are using it for a lot of back and forth running around - 1.25 hrs each way on one trip and 1.5 hrs each way on another ..... and it is fine. But if I go much longer I start to feel it.
I travel a lot for my work, so I have rented cars often. I feel Prius' seat is just fine. It is suppose dto be hurt when you drive a long trip or many hours. My previous TSX had power seats, but I still felt tired on my back after a long driving.
There are a lot of complaints and comments about uncomfortable G3 Prius seats, especially in trims II and III. Check out the below thread (post 61) for how to remove the seat from the car and add foam to the back of the seat: http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-iii-2010-prius-main-forum/102990-seats-too-relaxed-reclined-6.html You can apply the same technique to add foam to the seat bottom. Adding foam to the seat bottom and back works wonders to improve the seat comfort. After two years of wear, I restored the comfort of my Prius IV seats by removing them and inserting one inch upholstery foam between the springs and existing foam. This allowed me to restore the cushioning properties of the seat and adjust the curvature of the seatback to better fit my back. Its a bit of work to remove the seats, and you may need to do it more than once to get the right amount of foam in the right spots, but it was well worth the result.
The seat issue may affect the Prius a bit more than other cars since it attracts a slightly different buyer ...... than say a Honda Civic. Many older drivers (retired) look at a Prius and I am seeing many in my neighbors driveways as secondary cars. We also rent a lot of cars ... almost all from Enterprise -- so we get to try out lots of different seats .... This is not always accurate because some of the vehicles are obviously fleet vehicles -- produced for the rental market with basic interiors. That said -- you can design a good seat in a small car .... and the Prius is not that small. So I don't understand it because this has been so discussed in all the reviews. The only reason I keep responding to these threads --- Some people are just not comfortable in our five after they drive it for a while.
