Seat Height Adjustment

In Japan and Europe, Prius's come with manual driver's seat height adjustment. This is one of the most basic comfort and safety features on a car. It is hard to understand why US Toyota did not include this feature on the Prius. Perhaps they didn't want to make the Prius too nice, and thus canibalize Camry and other sales.

When a car has seat height adjustment, taller drivers would lower the seat, while shorter drivers would raise it. Probably 70% or more of Prius drivers would adjust the seat height if they were given the option. But they don't have it. So they feel varying degrees if discomfort. Installing manual driver's seat height adjustment would be inexpensive for a company of Toyota's scale (It's already on most other Prius's).

Every time I get in my car, I have the feeling the seat is too high (I'm 6'1"). I like to have the seat back straight up. For me, that's more comfortable. Since the Prius has a sloping down roof in the front and back, my vision is obstructed out of both windshields. I often must crouch down at traffic lights to see what color they are. And I can't see far out the back windshield if the road has any slope up.

It seems there are few features that have a greater benefit/cost ratio than driver's seat height adjustment. For a small cost, Toyota could greatly increase the comfort and safety of the Prius.

Does anyone know where to get a retrofit Toyota seat, perhaps from Europe or Japan? Toyota should provide these at very low cost. An industrious person on this site rebuild their seat to add height adjustment. But that's not a realistic option for most drivers. Others have installed Recaro seats. But this is expensive and you lose the side airbags.

Probably if enough of us ask Toyota to provide cheap retrofit seats, they will make it happen. I've already asked. I suggest anyone else that wants height adjustment also request that Toyota provide it.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Charles Suitt @ Apr 2 2007, 02:16 PM) [snapback]416480[/snapback]</div>

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I'd seen the pdf about rebuilding the seat before. That's way too much work for me! I would like the process to be a lot easier (ie: dealer installs retrofit seat for low cost in short time). If enough of us ask for it, I think it will happen.

Re the statistic, I did make it up. It seems like common sense to me. I roughly assumed the seat would be too high for one third of drivers, too low for another third, and about right for the final third. Another way to look at this is to ask, if the driver's seat did have height adjustment preset to the same height as our seats, how many would never adjust the height? I suspect the answer is close to zero.

Corolla's have seat height adjustment. Are Prius's lower end than Corolla's?

Clearly it was a stupid decision on the part of US Toyota to not include seat height adjustment. I understand from previous posts that the lack if seat height adjustment is due to decisions made at US Toyota not at the parent company, which makes sense when you consider the state of US auto operations versus Japan.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(adam1991 @ Apr 3 2007, 08:57 AM) [snapback]416959[/snapback]</div>

You think making a common sense, obvious estimate is bad. very bad? I thought my logic was good. very good. I suggested 70% of people would adjust seat height if they had the option. What do you think is a better number? Probably nearly 100% of people would adjust height if they had the option. But I was being conservative.

When you focus on the accuracy of an estimate, you miss the whole point of the note. My point was that the US Prius should have seat height adjustment. Perhaps you think it was a good idea that the Prius doesn't have height adjustment.

And comparing one person's common sense estimate to overwhelming scientific evidence of climate change is insane. There is not one peer reviewed study that says climate change isn't happening and humans are contributing to it. There is no debate in the scientific community about climate change. The key question is, if all credible scientists agree we are causing climate change, why do so many people think it's not a problem? Most of the answer relates to misinformation put out to a gullible public to protect earnings (ie: oil companies fear carbon restrictions would hurt profits. They have a fiduciary obligation to oppose anything that threatens shareholder returns. So they fund a scientist who "studies" climate change and discovers, surprise surprise, it's not a problem! Then they spend millions to pump the biased scientist's opinion out through the media. And the public comes to believe climate change is a communist plot to destroy the US economy.)

The problem also relates to non-experts acting like experts on climate change. I would bet you don't work in this field. I do. Your discussing climate change is like me discussing brain surgury. Would anyone take me seriosly because I read an article or two? I hope not. So why do we so often make the same mistake in the environmental area. These are complex issues. The average person doesn't have time to study them.

But let me make is simple for you. Forget the science. Use simple logic. We pull a lot of fossil fuel from the ground, and burn it which releases CO2, a known heat trapping atmosperic gas. These are all facts. No debate here, except among the mentally challenged. Now here's the key question. Are we releasing carbon into the atmosphere at faster than the natural rate? Again, the answer is obviously yes. In fact, we are removing carbon sequestered in the Earth's crust over millions of years and releasing it into the atmosphere in a couple of hundred years. Does this guarantee climate change? No. But do we need absolute certainty? The question is, is there a risk to our children? If so, what level of certainty do we need to act? How about 20% probability of large risk to our children. Is that enough to protect them? If every peer reviewed study says we're putting our kids at risk, I think we've crossed the reasonability threashold. To not act is grossly irresponsible to our children.

Now to address another key illogical point about climate change -- namely, that it will hurt the US economy. Think about it. Addressing GCC almost completely means using energy more efficiently. Efficiency is a good thing in economics. Who would benefit from addressing GCC? Many jobs would be created in small and mid sized companies as we retrofit homes and businesses with efficient insulation, windows, lighting, HVAC, etc. Asthma, bronchitis and many other air pollution related illnesses would go down since cutting CO2 means cutting SOx, NOx, mercury, etc emissions. Disposable income goes up since people are spending less on health insurance and energy. US companies begin making more efficient products that are more competitive around the world (think Prius).

Hmmm.... So who gets hurt by carbon restrictions? Dumb energy companies. The smart ones see the writing on the wall and shift their business model. The dumb ones fight climate change on the regulatory front and in the media. Sounds like they convinced you and milllions of others.

 

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<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(adam1991 @ Apr 4 2007, 07:46 AM) [snapback]417529[/snapback]</div>

First of all, the seat height issue and global warming issue are separate. On the seat issue, I was making a common sense observation that I believe most people would agree with. In fact, I think you'd be hard pressed to make the case that most people would not use seat height adjustment if it was available.

People are different heights. Therefore, the optimal seat height would most likely vary by person. On the seat issue, my point was not to say absolutely 70%, no more and no less, are inconvenienced by lack of height adjustment. My point was to say having height adjustment is a good thing. I think most people would understand what I was saying. Argumentative people might nit pick the irrelevant number though.

The main problem I had with your logic was your equating the climate change debate to my choice of a number. You implied people are mistaken to take the word of the climate change experts. As I said, there is no debate in the scientific community about climate change. Therefore, the average non-climate change expert citizen can rely on the range of impact numbers provided by the scientific community.

It sounded like you were suggesting, because I arbitrarily chose a number, the climate change scientists arbitrarily picked their numbers. And they therefore shouldn't be trusted. This makes no sense at all.

Climate change has been thoroughly researched by the best scientists in the world. These numbers can be relied on.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Silver Phoenix @ Apr 5 2007, 05:31 PM) [snapback]418436[/snapback]</div>

I bet many Prius owners feel the same as you. I know I do!

Prius's in Europe, Japan and other countries have height adjustment. It seems like Toyota could easily make height adjustable seats available to US Prius owners at a low cost. If enough of us ask for it, perhaps they will make it a priority. All they need to do is make the seats currently available in other countries available through the US Toyota dealer/parts network. Maybe the DOT needs to rubber stamp the new seat. But I think Toyota has enough clout to make that happen easily.

If we want seat height adjustment, we need to make it happen by calling and writing Toyota!