The seats in my car hurt my back! Any suggestions?

Oct 4 16:47 UTC 2002

The seats in my '94 Honda Civic hurt my back.  After about an hour of
driving it, my lower back starts to ache.  Unfortunately I didn't discover
this until after I'd bought it, because I didn't test drive it long enough.
(I'd guess the dealership would have gotten pretty nervous if I'd
disappeared for an hour and a half with it.)  Reclining the seatback a
couple notches helps, but not enough.

This isn't a new problem, but it's been bothering me more and more lately.
I've had the car about a year and a half.

So, anyone have any suggestions on what to do about this?  It's enough of a
problem that I'm thinking of selling the car.  (Have to finish paying for it
first, though. :P )

response 2 of 21:

Oct 4 18:30 UTC 2002

I haven't asked the dealer.  I doubt they'd have anything to offer, though.

I've thought about trying to add padding, but I don't know where to add it. 
I'm not sure if the lumbar bulge is too small, too large, or too low.

response 4 of 21:

Oct 5 02:59 UTC 2002

More important than any of those are probably back exercises.  If you get your
back to the point where it's strong enough to hold its own preferred position
regardless of what the seat does, the shape of the seat becomes a lot less
of an issue.

As far as figuring out where to add padding goes, where does the back hurt,
and what does your back feel like is wrong?  I find with my back and
uncomfortable chairs, I can generally feel what position my back wants to be
in, even if the chair is designed such that it would take a lot of strength
to comfortably hold my back in that position.  If you can figure out what
shape your back wants to be, you can probably figure out where to insert
padding to accomplish that.

response 6 of 21:

Oct 7 21:05 UTC 2002

I think before turning the car in I would definitely investigate all of
these extra padding options.  If you have any sort of history of back
problems, crooked spine, etc., it's also worth checking that out,
independently.  If the padding option works, but you think it's ugly and
don't mind paying a bit to get a "nicer" option, you might want to
investigate having the seat redone.  There should be all sorts of
options, including those with softer cushier cushioning, and probably
expensive custom jobs that are custom fitted to your particular back and
posterior.

response 8 of 21:

Oct 8 02:20 UTC 2002

I've wedged a folded towel into the deep hollow where the seatback meets the
bottom cushion, as a way of making the seat a little "flatter".  This seems
to have helped, though I haven't taken a long enough trip to know how much,
yet.  I actually don't have any history at all of back problems, other than
a sore back for a few weeks after getting thrown on my head in gym class in
6th grade.  I'm just tall and skinny enough to be outside of whatever
percentile seat designers look to, I suspect.

This won't solve my other gripe, which is that the bottom cushion is just
too darn thin.  That's less of an issue, though, since it takes several
hours before my ass starts to get sore.  It's an understandable
problem...the car has a low roofline, and a thicker cushion would have put
my head into the sunroof.  This is what happens when you buy an economy car,
especially one designed by short Japanese people. ;)

Recaro seats would exceed the marginal cost of selling this car and buying
something else, I suspect.  I like the car, but I'm not that dedicated to
it.  I haven't priced Recaros specifically, but seats seem to be shockingly
expensive items, even used.

response 10 of 21:

Oct 8 05:24 UTC 2002

Re #6: in my experience, "softer cushier cushioning" makes back and
leg-cramp problems *worse*. I can sit longer and more comfortably in wood
chairs than in padded chairs. This does seem rather contrary to
expectations, but it does fit with our evolution, during most of which
we sat on rocks, logs, etc. 

response 12 of 21:

Oct 9 00:38 UTC 2002

I'm also not sure a wooden kitchen chair is a good analogy.  Those chairs
are generally designed to encourage you to sit in an upright posture where
you're not really leaning against the seatback.  By contrast most car seats
are built so you sit somewhat reclined.

The upright posture is certainly easier to get right -- my back generally
doesn't get sore driving my VW van, even though it has fairly cheap seats,
simply because the seating position is very upright.  The shape of the seat
matters a whole lot less when your back isn't all in firm contact with it
and supporting weight.

response 14 of 21:

Oct 9 01:43 UTC 2002

See, that's usually my preference, but in the Honda putting the seat fully
upright makes my back sore very quickly.  Reclining it two notches seems to
help.

response 16 of 21:

Oct 9 13:57 UTC 2002

You were probably wise not to get the Neon.  The seats in the one my mom
used to have were terrible.

response 18 of 21:

Oct 20 03:15 UTC 2002

If you have a Neon with lousey seats, just go to a junkyard and pick up a set
of Jetta seats.  Leave the Neon seats there while you are..  I've heard for
other people that VW seats are pretty comfortable in general.

response 20 of 21:

Oct 22 06:16 UTC 2002

Well, they're both metric.  It's not impossible, if not likely.