Harv
Elite Member
- Joined
- Aug 22, 2000
- Messages
- 3,371
- Tractor
- Kubota L2500DT Standard Transmission
When all else fails, ask the TBN brain trust.
Need a new car for the wife, which of course means a good kid hauler among other things, so it ain't gonna be no sub-compact. We've been shopping for a couple of weeks and we keep running into the same problem, namely, the driver's seats are not designed for the, uh... vertically challenged.
My li'l gal is 5 feet, zero inches tall (100 lbs on a strong gravity day), so her legs don't always reach the ground, if you know what I mean. In the past it hasn't been all that much trouble finding cars where she can reach the pedals, but it seems like today's high-tech, "infinitely" adjustable, ergonomic seats have evolved into just the wrong shape for her.
On most of the vehicles we tried, she can just reach the pedals, but to push down on them requires that she force her upper leg down into the seat cushion. After just 10 or 15 minutes (conicidentally the duration of a test drive), she is experiencing muscle fatigue and pain in her hips. And of course she thinks driving is not supposed to be a painful experience. /w3tcompact/icons/eyes.gif
Naturally, the vehicles that have all the features we are looking for have the most uncomfortable seats for her. The one or two where the driver's seat is okay are the ones I dislike the most. Sorry, Wifey -- if we're gonna spend the bucks (which we really don't have), it has to at least have adequate horsepower and it dang well better have more cargo space than what we're driving now. /w3tcompact/icons/tongue.gif
So a couple of days ago, I took a crude sketch (see attachment) of the driver's seat from our first choice vehicle and went to talk to an auto upholsterer. The sketch shows my rendition of the modification that would make it comfortable for my wife, and at the same time be okay for me. I talked to the shop owner for maybe 20 minutes and he showed me the "naked" seat cushions from some other vehicles to give me an idea of what was involved.
The foam is the easy part and he can tailor the covering (leather, of course /w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif) to look like new, he sez. The problem is that all modern seat cushions have embedded support wires to hold the shape of the cushion over years of use. It's a tough, spring steel kinda wire about the guage of a hefty coat hanger. It forms a sparse framework that holds the foam in place while offering just the right amount of "give".
Without seeing the actual seat, he can't be sure just how much foam he can remove without getting too close to the wire. From what he tells me, if we leave the wire too close to the surface, it will eventually wear its way right through and then start on the leather seat covers.
It looks like these wire are embedded right in the foam, so right off the bat they're not easy to modify. This guy said he could probably cut and remove a section, but he wouldn't be able to weld it back into a new location 'cuz torches and foam rubber don't get along very well.
He's the only "professional" I've talked to so far, but I gotta admit, he seemed pretty competent (19 years in the business). Oh, and the rough estimate for the job was about $200, not bad over the total cost of a new vehicle.
So that's where we are today. Weary and frustrated, and the car we're driving now is developing transmission problems. Can't wait much longer.
As you can see from the attached sketch, there's only a couple of inches of squishy stuff between us and a new vehicle. It doesn't look like brain surgery to me, but the wife is a little frightened at the idea of spending about $35K and then seeing if we can make it work for us. Women.
Oh, and before I forget -- the dealers themselves have been absolutey no help whatsoever. /w3tcompact/icons/mad.gif
Thoughts?
Need a new car for the wife, which of course means a good kid hauler among other things, so it ain't gonna be no sub-compact. We've been shopping for a couple of weeks and we keep running into the same problem, namely, the driver's seats are not designed for the, uh... vertically challenged.
My li'l gal is 5 feet, zero inches tall (100 lbs on a strong gravity day), so her legs don't always reach the ground, if you know what I mean. In the past it hasn't been all that much trouble finding cars where she can reach the pedals, but it seems like today's high-tech, "infinitely" adjustable, ergonomic seats have evolved into just the wrong shape for her.
On most of the vehicles we tried, she can just reach the pedals, but to push down on them requires that she force her upper leg down into the seat cushion. After just 10 or 15 minutes (conicidentally the duration of a test drive), she is experiencing muscle fatigue and pain in her hips. And of course she thinks driving is not supposed to be a painful experience. /w3tcompact/icons/eyes.gif
Naturally, the vehicles that have all the features we are looking for have the most uncomfortable seats for her. The one or two where the driver's seat is okay are the ones I dislike the most. Sorry, Wifey -- if we're gonna spend the bucks (which we really don't have), it has to at least have adequate horsepower and it dang well better have more cargo space than what we're driving now. /w3tcompact/icons/tongue.gif
So a couple of days ago, I took a crude sketch (see attachment) of the driver's seat from our first choice vehicle and went to talk to an auto upholsterer. The sketch shows my rendition of the modification that would make it comfortable for my wife, and at the same time be okay for me. I talked to the shop owner for maybe 20 minutes and he showed me the "naked" seat cushions from some other vehicles to give me an idea of what was involved.
The foam is the easy part and he can tailor the covering (leather, of course /w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif) to look like new, he sez. The problem is that all modern seat cushions have embedded support wires to hold the shape of the cushion over years of use. It's a tough, spring steel kinda wire about the guage of a hefty coat hanger. It forms a sparse framework that holds the foam in place while offering just the right amount of "give".
Without seeing the actual seat, he can't be sure just how much foam he can remove without getting too close to the wire. From what he tells me, if we leave the wire too close to the surface, it will eventually wear its way right through and then start on the leather seat covers.
It looks like these wire are embedded right in the foam, so right off the bat they're not easy to modify. This guy said he could probably cut and remove a section, but he wouldn't be able to weld it back into a new location 'cuz torches and foam rubber don't get along very well.
He's the only "professional" I've talked to so far, but I gotta admit, he seemed pretty competent (19 years in the business). Oh, and the rough estimate for the job was about $200, not bad over the total cost of a new vehicle.
So that's where we are today. Weary and frustrated, and the car we're driving now is developing transmission problems. Can't wait much longer.
As you can see from the attached sketch, there's only a couple of inches of squishy stuff between us and a new vehicle. It doesn't look like brain surgery to me, but the wife is a little frightened at the idea of spending about $35K and then seeing if we can make it work for us. Women.
Oh, and before I forget -- the dealers themselves have been absolutey no help whatsoever. /w3tcompact/icons/mad.gif
Thoughts?