Replacing Driver & Passenger Seats

Your driver's seat has a seat position sensor and airbag. The passenger seat has an airbag and occupant detection ECU (don't know if it has position sensor).

There's guy who put a pair of volvo front seats in but I don't know all of how he pulled it off.

I got a quote from an upholsterer who said he's put a number of Recaro seats in Gen2 Prius'. I didn't get details, but I swear he said they bolt the airbag onto the side of the Recaro seat frame (imagine, has explosive igniter inside, bolted to side of your seat, great).

Anything is possible.

Not sure why you'd want racing seats in a Prius. It's a Prius after all. Feeling up too high in the car? That's because seat is fixed 2" higher than if it had a height adjuster put all the way down. No height adjustment and lack of telescopic steering wheel ruin decent ergonomics for many Gen2 drivers. Plus, it's small, narrow seat.

Something more racy at low cost would be like a ....

Mazdaspeed 3 hatchback or just basic Mazda 3

 

You could probably do it but you'd most definitely lose the side airbags. It's likely that you would have to fabricate your own seat rails and mounts to adapt to like a Sparco or a Bride.

 

Recaro also makes a seat with its own side airbag.

 

The problem with cheap aftermarket seats is typically their poor survivability in crash situations. I'd bet money that if the seats you're thinking about using are cheaper than seat covers, crash/safety testing was likely not even on the manufacturers' set of engineering tasks.

 

Airbag is the black thing bolted to side of Prius seat frame. It had warning signs in 4 languages on it

I would think the seat position sensors, airbags and passenger occupant detection ECU complicate things a whole lot. That and securely bolting racing seats in the car, interfacing wiring harnesses, mating seat belt buckles to seat latches.



If you're not too tall, you might be able to improves things with some seat foam shaving (I know a few things about that), then covers to give the look you want. Lot easier than bolting aftermarket seats. A Prius seat bottom foam cushion is $200.

Plus, if you did put in aftermarket seats, would need to be sure you can easily put the car back to stock or else cannot trade car in and doubt anyone would buy the car - too much liability.

One more thing - it's not just the seat to worry about, it's the steering wheel too. Say you put a racing seat in that sits very low to the floor. You may be screwed because the steering wheel may not be designed to accomodate. Just saying.

Some performance shops might know more about sport seats in a Prius.

 

I know this thread is a little old (but still this year), but I keep running across it in my searches which is why I wanted to update it.

I called Recaro directly and they said they make a seat with a side airbag, but don't sell it in the US for liability reasons. I also found out more info about the "losing the side airbag" thing, if you're interested (there's actually 2 side airbags, you only lose 1 and good side bolsters may or may not make up for that one):
http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-...t-i-offer-some-side-airbag-clarification.html

 

I have to get different seats, I'm having bad back problems now. What, have we figured out, are the direct replacement options?

HTC One V ? 2

 

An extra inch of foam (side bolster) isn't going to mean squat when you're t-boned at 50 mph, especially if you're only buckled into a 3 point stock seat belt. There's no making up for the lost airbag, unless you're talking about a containment seat...

 

just a thought, but if you are looking for seats to replace the stock Prius equipment (and why not) perhaps something within what Toyota offer on their other models is more worthwhile. There are bound to be more similarities that would ease the transition of fitting and hardware issues such as air-bags.

Perhaps something from the Celica range or something like that .....

 

I don't know what comfort is, camaro I rented had wonderful seats

HTC One V ? 2