Front seat retrofits

Malcyb

Malcyb

Member
Hi all,
Another question to help with my wish list. I’ve noticed that a lot of the cars on sale have very saggy looking bolsters on the drivers seat, something that I imagine no amount of valeting would overcome. I appreciate this goes with the territory on cars of this age, but what are the options to overcome this, bearing in mind I really only want cloth seats? I assume driver and passenger seats are interchangeable, so is it best to get a second pair and use the passenger seat from each pair?
Thanks
 
Unfortunately, the front seats are 'sided'. The passenger seat cannot be fitted on the driver's side. This is not just due to their mountings, but also due to things like the adjustment controls, the seatbelt buckle, the integrated airbags, etc.

The issue that you describe affects Sport seats much more than the standard SE seats. Are you specifically looking for a car with Sport seats?

Cheers,

Tom
 
The real culprits for sagging bolsters are the Sport seats, because they're larger on this model. Those on the standard model seats (normally referred to as SE) hold up very well by comparison. However SE seats generally lack the built-in electric lumbar support that all but the earliest Sport seats had and, unfortunately, they could really do with it. You'll notice the little switches on the seat side panels if they are lumbar equipped.

If you can find them, it sounds like SE lumbar seats will be your best bet. Given that you can power the lumbar motors temporarily to achieve your desired setting with just 12v and earth, any lumbar equipped seat is effectively a plug & play retrofit, but as you may have guessed, @timmus can provide the proper wiring for you.

As the man himself says, you can't swap the driver and passenger seats as entire units. On SE seats at least (not sure about Sport) I believe you can remove the entire base cushion unit still in its cloth covering and swap it to the other seat, but you may end up having to drill out its rear bolts - I couldn't undo a set when I tried once, the bolts just ended up spinning in place. The alternative is to remove the lower cover and swap the foam pads underneath - this requires some cutting in the case of Sport seats because of the metal bars that run through the larger bolsters. You would also have to remove and reinsert the rods holding the seams of the cover down into the foam - it's been done DIY but that's way too fiddly for me.
 
Aha, I may need a bit of education then on seat designs... the ones I’d been looking at were fitted to SE’s (I’d most likely favour that over a Sport) but the amount of retrofitting going on I find it hard to tell! Would one of you kindly be able to point me at images of which is which?

Either way, it sounds like there are workarounds, so assume I needn‘t discount a car with a ropey drivers seat.
 
These are Sport seats...

index.php


You can see that the bolsters are much deeper than standard seats, both on the base and on the back. You sit 'in' Sport seats, whereas you sit 'on' standard seats.

Malcyb said:
Either way, it sounds like there are workarounds, so assume I needn‘t discount a car with a ropey drivers seat.
Click to expand...
There most definitely are. Seats are also exchanged on the marketplace a lot, so changing seats is easy and fairly commonplace. As you say, don't discount a car on the basis of its seats.

Although it doesn't relate specifically to the differences between front seats, I recommend you read this thread...

A Guide to the A2's Boot and Rear Seats

Amongst its many virtues, the A2's rear cabin space is hugely flexible. The A2 was available with two rear seating arrangements: The 4-seater version of the A2 only has two rear seats, but they can be removed individually, meaning the car's either a 2-seater, a 3-seater or a 4-seater. In...
www.a2oc.net
You'll see that there are two different seating arrangements in the back of the car. We call these 'Split Rear' and 'Bench'. All front seats can be fitted to all A2s, but the rear seats vary. If I'm selling a full set of seats for a Bench car, and you've got a Split Rears car, you won't be able to fit the rear seats.

Cheers,

Tom
 
Malcyb said:
Would one of you kindly be able to point me at images of which is which?
Click to expand...

Happy to help :) These are Sport seats, in the original jacquard fabric:

Photo1005.jpg


And these are SE seats (with lumbar) in the original Satellite cloth upgrade:

photo1285.jpg


As well as the size and shape of the bolsters, you can often tell the difference from the fabric alone. There was only one fabric pattern (the later Matrix upgrade, similar to the Satellite above but with a closer pattern of smaller squares) which was shared between both styles. But in cloth at least, if you're not sure which is which you can always tell by counting the panels - the SE's have 1 fewer on each cushion, on the rears as well as the fronts. (In leather both models have the same numbers of panels, so leather SE rear seats are actually identical their Sport counterparts).

Sorry. I'll stop geeking out now ?
 
@timmus , @Proghound this is very helpful indeed. For sure the ones I’d been looking at were SE seats, just not very good examples I guess. Regarding the rear seats, I was aware of the variants and that they weren’t swappable. I’d definitely prefer the split rear - that’s much the most common isn’t it?
 
Malcyb said:
I’d definitely prefer the split rear - that’s much the most common isn’t it?
Click to expand...
Yes, the split rear arrangement is the default. To my mind, it's also the preferable arrangement. Unless you want to seat 5 people in your A2, the bench is a downgrade.
 
timmus said:
Yes, the split rear arrangement is the default. To my mind, it's also the preferable arrangement. Unless you want to seat 5 people in your A2, the bench is a downgrade.
Click to expand...

Precisely - I’d never want to seat 5, but might well want to drop one seat back.
 
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