Well, I'm off to the upholstery shop to inquire about seat reshaping

No, a 2010 seat will not fit - it's a different frame, mount pattern and electrical is different.

 

Oh boy, getting good upholstery service is not happening yet.

I checked the seat into the closest upholstery shop. They have an A rating with the BBB. I'm not sure why ...

I left it with them first thing Tuesday morning. I called day later to ask a simple question. The guy said he might get to working on it this afternoon.

I stopped by late afternoon while in between running a work errand. Said, so where's that seat at? We walk back and shows me the seat laying on the bare shop floor. I say, gee, couldn't you lay it on something?

I couldn't bring the seat home right then and there, but I'll be retrieving it first thing tomorrow morning. I made it quite clear that it is a custom mounted seat that I've put a lot of work into. Lay it on the shop floor and I'm no longer a customer.

I called the 2 Toyota dealers and neither of them refer to the shop I've dealt with so far - King Kovers in Fremont.

Hayward Toyota uses King Kovers in Hayward which is not affiliated with the Fremont shop.

Sigh. I could learn how to uncover the seat fabric and do the work myself. I might get better results that way.

 

There are shops out there that would be more than happy to install a Recaro seat, usually the Specialist M model in a 2004 -09 Prius, but it'll set you back about $1,700 for 1 seat, mounted and plugged in.

Maybe that's not so bad as Toyota charges over $2,500 for 1 Prius driver's replacement seat. Crazy. I was quoted a price of $3k for a 2008 Corolla driver's seat from Toyota, last week.

 

Well, since you're 5'1" you probably have extra headroom to sit on a seat cushion.

Here's my suggestion, seriously ......

You could cut a template that follows the contour of the flat portion of seat bottom (you know, it curves outward towards front of seat).

In that section, you could put something like 3/4" of firm foam (cover it though) shaped like the template. When you sit on the foam, those raised sides won't press in as much. Although I haven't tried this, but with only a 1/4" of foam, it seems that it would help.

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And with Toyota, basically the bigger cars have the bigger seats. Camry and up is where things get nice. Corollas and down, not so much.

But, the 2010 Pri is a small-midsize car with midsize seats, so Toyota listened 'bigtime'.

 

Just to follow up, I didn't do nor did I have any seat shaping or shaving done at all.

After partially removing the bottom fabric it appeared you really cannot shave down the bottom flat portion. There seems to be hook wires in the foam that attach to hog rings on the fabric. If foam was shaved, seems one would then be sitting on those hooks, not good.

Any shaving of sides would require re-sewing the cover so fabric is not saggy. More money out of pocket for little gain. I just put the seat back together, popped it in the car, covered it, that's it.

I learned some about seat disassembly in case I get into the next big mod.

 

Who needs an upholstery shop. Time to deal with this devil of a seat bottom on my own terms.

I wonder if any dremel cutting tools will shave foam well, hmmmmm

 

Thanks! I bought a $50 Cuisinart electric knife last weekend. It cut my sample foam piece well.

I tried my dremel with high-speed cutting bit and it shaves foam. It makes a lot of foam dust so maybe I'll just use it for the hard to reach places.

 

Relaxing those annoying raised sides on the seat bottom. I'll be cuttin' & sittin' a lot this weekend. I might shave the flat bottom portion depending on how the dremel works on this foam. There seems to be room to remove roughly 1/2" foam on flat portion and still be able to attach the OEM cover.



I know it might be a pain to have the bottom fabric modified. Maybe I'll just put a generic cover over the seat back and bottom and leave it at that. I'll know when I get to that point.

 

One Saturday using electric knife and a dremel rotary tool


To make this (not quite final shape, but close)


Sunday it's back together again


I was able to take over 1/4" off the flat portion by bending the foam to get in with electric knife.