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Me: 1, Seat bolster: 0, Utility knife: 3

vi edit

vi edit

Elite Member
Super Moderator
A month ago I bought a Focus.
(relevant thread: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2326445&highlight=focus)

I've been mostly satisfied with the car with the exception of comfort. The major issue I was having is with the small bolster lip on the seat cushions. It was just enough to give me serious leg pain and left me uncomfortable even hours after driving the car.

I'm not a big guy, 6' and 175 pounds but I'm fairly wide in the hips and just have a wide stance driving. I tried messing around with memory foam pads, towels, adjusting the seat incessantly, ect. Never could find something that worked.

So I took to the task of tackeling that damn bolster.

First thing I did was take off the plastic trim that houses the power seat controls and wraps out the door side of the seat. Then I felt and tugged around and found that the leather covers are held on from these "J" channel clips that wrap and clip onto the seat frame. Some elbow grease and pulling and they came loose.

Then I was able to peel them away from the frame and get down to business.

The bolstering is actually embedded in the foam seat cushion. So I go back to the tool bench and get a utility knife. Check the blade. Dull as crap. I want a fresh one to cut into the foam. Find what I think is a brand new pack of blades. Flip it around and peel the tab open on the back. Start peeling that away and start feeling a sting in my fingers wrapped around the front of the pack. Stop, inspect, and find that the front of the blade packaging had peeled away and a blade slipped out and cut up 4 of my fingertips. Owe.

Wipe up blood. Get the blade replaced and get back to business.

Cut away the foam and find the metal basket that makes up the bolster. Try to figure out the best plan of attack and settle on the dremel and a cutoff wheel.

3 minutes later, a shitload of sparks, that yummy cut metal smell and some cussing and the bolster is cut out.

Yay! Pull back the cover, put the trim on and now I have leg/thigh happiness! Total improvement over that metal bar being a couple millimeters under my leg.

Victory is mine!

Here's what I removed:
https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=e46bb480e134a82a#cid=E46BB480E134A82A&id=E46BB480E134A82A!4226

What it looks like now:
https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=e46bb480e134a82a#cid=E46BB480E134A82A&id=E46BB480E134A82A!4225

Finger tip casualty...it's just a flesh wound!
https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=e46bb480e134a82a#cid=E46BB480E134A82A&id=E46BB480E134A82A!4228
 
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Erm. Whatever floats your boat. But the edge of your seat is going to get flattened from entering/exiting the car.
 
phucheneh said:
Erm. Whatever floats your boat. But the edge of your seat is going to get flattened from entering/exiting the car.
Click to expand...

Any seat is going to take abuse on that edge. That's just the way it is. Bolstered or not. My two Toyota vehicles have a raised lip similar to what my Focus have, but no metal rod running through them. It's no different now than either of them. Except my left leg doesn't go numb now.

My old GTI had a fairly heavy bolstering and that was fairly worn out in the cloth. So you just face a different issue.
 
Different manufacturers make seats in different ways, though. Japanese cars usually use a stamped pan that is all one piece. Reinforcing with random bits like that piece of roundbar is something I've seen on both German and American cars, though.

The important thing to remember: car manufacturers are cheap. If they thought the seat would hold up okay without that five cents with of steel, they wouldn't put it there.

Did you take pics of what it looked like with the cover and/or foam pulled back?

My solution would probably have been an extra layer of foam around that bar.
 
I really don't think this is a throw it in there so it can "holdup" issue. It's more of a semblance of support and "sport seats". Eventually that area is just going to wear as almost any other area of egress would. That piece of foam in there is formed no differently than other vehicles I own, it just happened to have a metal rod running through it when others didn't. There's no "pan" with my wife's Camry or the Sienna. Just some rounded foam under the cover.
 
I am becoming more confident that you don't quite understand how seats work. 'This one seat has foam in it and no bar, and it worked fine; therefore this other one will be fine without that bar...'

...no, that's not really how it works. That foam is typically multiple pieces of varying thickness and densities, intended to work with the structure they designed to support it. Just because the foam [temporarily] holds a rough shape on its own, does not mean it does not need said support.

But like I said, you can feel free to believe what you want.
 
198020-neil-degrasse-tyson-reaction1.jpeg
phucheneh said:
I am becoming more confident that you don't quite understand how seats work. 'This one seat has foam in it and no bar, and it worked fine; therefore this other one will be fine without that bar...'

...no, that's not really how it works. That foam is typically multiple pieces of varying thickness and densities, intended to work with the structure they designed to support it. Just because the foam [temporarily] holds a rough shape on its own, does not mean it does not need said support.

But like I said, you can feel free to believe what you want.
Click to expand...
 
phucheneh said:
I am becoming more confident that you don't quite understand how seats work. 'This one seat has foam in it and no bar, and it worked fine; therefore this other one will be fine without that bar...'

...no, that's not really how it works. That foam is typically multiple pieces of varying thickness and densities, intended to work with the structure they designed to support it. Just because the foam [temporarily] holds a rough shape on its own, does not mean it does not need said support.

But like I said, you can feel free to believe what you want.
Click to expand...

does that even matter if he gets leg/hip pain from the bar being there?
 
A real man would have used the utility knife to cut his own sciatic nerve out. Thereby eliminating the leg pain for good!

Seriously, I feel for you. It takes me a good amount of fiddling to get really comfortable in some seats. While others, I feel comfortable right away. And, like you found, with some seats I just can't get comfortable. A set of replacement seats I got for my VW have a metal rod that eventually chews through the foam and fabric to dig into your leg with a minimal amount of interference. I don't understand how by now we haven't figured out a plastic material that will give support while allowing flex / yielding when it is obviously digging into someones body. When I bought the seats, I got two passenger seats and one drivers seat. Of course, the drivers seat bolster was already rubbed through. I read this thread with interest because I'm still deciding what to do about that rod when I re-upholster the drivers seat with the cushion from the extra passenger seat. I was thinking of wrapping it with some high density foam, but haven't ruled out cutting it down / removing it.

Lastly, I wanted to add that sometimes you can get a better set of seats from a junkyard that are a few years newer. It seems that eventually the manufactures learn that their mass produced products aren't always a good fit for the masses. I replaced the seats in my daughters Dodge Stratus with a set from a newer car for $80 for the pair (cloth, not leather). WOW! What a difference in support and comfort. The fact that they bolted right in, had all of the safety testing / certifications that a major manufacturer gets, had the proper hardware mounting points, and had a similar pattern was wonderful.
 
NutBucket said:
I don't get it though. I don't care how great the car is because if I'm not comfortable in it I wouldn't buy it.
Click to expand...

It wasn't something that I noticed on test drives. I did 3 different 20 minute drives and didn't notice. It wasn't until I had it for about 3 weeks that the pain started to slow creep up. Far past any return window I'd have.
 
As far as specifics go on the seat itself, under the cover is essentially a moulded foam ring that makes up the outer part of the seat base. It does appear to be attached to the flat part of the seat base, but it was hard to tell since the cover was glued down to the flat part of the seat. I've got the factory butt warmers and from what I read they usually glue the covers down when those are installed.

The outer ring has that metal rod embedded in it all the way around the outside edges and then it ducks under the front and back edges of the cushion. I butterfly cut the outside edge of the foam that sits next to the drivers side door. Got it cut enough that I could get to that metal rail, used the cutoff wheel to cut it out, and then put everything back together.

The flat bottom part of the seat is supported by a woven wire basket that the seat cover on the "back" part clips to from the backside of the seat.

I understand the argument of that left side "drooping", but frankly that's the desired outcome. I want that knocked down some to relieve a contact point with my thigh. It can only drop so much before it is stopped by the huge plastic trim that wraps around that side of the seat base.
 
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It's weird that you had that issue at your weight, though. I'm ~220 and bolsters don't tend to pose a problem. Is this an automatic or manual car? I'm guessing maybe you sit kinda wide-legged with your knee against the door?

I wasn't knocking you; just trying to point out that it may have been a tiny bit rash and you might eventually find the seat to be lacking in support on the side, or just feel a little lop-sided.

The seat cover shouldn't be glued to the main foam. Might have a thin layer stuck to it, but the main attachment is generally hog rings, which plastic pipes sewn into a the cover to metal rods embedded int the power parts of the foam. #1 rule of dealing with upholstery: don't accidentally rip the rods out of the foam or you're boned.

I've seen velcro substituted on occasion. Might have been a Ford; can't remember.
 
It's a manual, and I'm just abnormally wide in the hips relative to my build. I've got a 36" waist which is sort of crazy for a guy that's typically my size. And yeah, I sit wide legged mostly because I have issues with clearance under the steering wheel with my knees in most cars.
 
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Supportive isn't synonymous with comfort.

A jock strap is more supportive than boxer briefs but I don't wear one of them daily.
A park bench is more supportive than a hammock but I'd rather nap in the later.
A Herman Miller office chair is more supportive than a recliner but I'd rather watch TV in the Lazy Boy.
My wife needs an underwire bra to keep the jugs in control but moves over to just a tank top as soon as she gets home.

And so on.

Bodies are built different with different tolerances and ideals of comfort. Having a bit more give on that side is more comfortable for me. *shrug*.
 
Not everyone sits exactly the same either, I have a habit of leaning towards the right in any car I drive, I couldn't even consider driving any car without a decent center console..
 
heh, funny you took the bolstering out. I ruled out many cars because it didnt have enough lateral bolstering.

different strokes for different folks...
 
vi edit said:
Supportive isn't synonymous with comfort.

A jock strap is more supportive than boxer briefs but I don't wear one of them daily.
A park bench is more supportive than a hammock but I'd rather nap in the later.
A Herman Miller office chair is more supportive than a recliner but I'd rather watch TV in the Lazy Boy.
My wife needs an underwire bra to keep the jugs in control but moves over to just a tank top as soon as she gets home.

And so on.

Bodies are built different with different tolerances and ideals of comfort. Having a bit more give on that side is more comfortable for me. *shrug*.
Click to expand...

Your next car should be this:
front_seats.jpg
 
Aharami said:
heh, funny you took the bolstering out. I ruled out many cars because it didnt have enough lateral bolstering.

different strokes for different folks...
Click to expand...

The odd thing is that I'd probably be okay with something like a Recaro that had a very aggressive bolstering. Then it'd force me into a particular seating position instead of letting my leg wander and rest on the edge of the seat.

Or I move up to a car that is 2.5x more expensive than this one and get the fancy power adjustible bolstering. 😀
 
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