Head rests in newer vehicles

[MaryAnn]

Are torture devices for someone who is not six feet tall.

Do any of you have wives, girlfriends, sisters, etc, who are small/short and have found a solution to the "head rest pushing your head so far forward that your back doesn't even touch the seat if you sit upright" problem?

MA

[tbn.al]

My wife and I both had that problem in her new car. After about a month of suffering she complained to the salesman during a checkup and he reached in with a flick of the wrist and adjusted it. It fits great now. Adjustable headrests.....................who would have thunk it? Obviously we don't trade cars very often, maybe every 10 to 12 years.

[Rick F]

NHTSA came out with a new rule on height and spacing of head restraints starting with the 2009 model year. When I bought my '09 Camry, I hated the forward angle and closeness of the head restraints. It took me quite some time to get used to it. I learned to tilt my seat-back back a bit more to keep the head rest from touching the back of my head.

Here's a link with more info:
Headrests At The Top Of Car Seat Problems

[cjk]

Get a booster seat.

I had a nanny once who was well under 5 feet tall. She had a pillow in her driver's seat. When buying car seats for my kids, I realized that the nanny was small enough to fit within the height and weight requirements of some kid car seats.

[MaryAnn]

Get a booster seat.

I had a nanny once who was well under 5 feet tall. She had a pillow in her driver's seat. When buying car seats for my kids, I realized that the nanny was small enough to fit within the height and weight requirements of some kid car seats.

Already I cannot get my heels on the floor; with a booster seat I will resemble Lily Thomlin in the rocking chair, and dat's da troof!

Have not bought a vehicle because of this problem. I'm not so short that I don't need a headrest, but I believe the damage one of these would do would be at least as bad as the damage caused by an accident with it removed.
I think this is something that must have been arrived at by committee, because no single individual could come up with a design this stupid.
MA

[tofu]

This after market seat will solve your headrest etc. problem:

http://www.recaro-automotive.com/en/pro ... alist.html

There are some vehicles on the market that have adjustable pedals. On my Lincoln you can electronically adjust the pedals via a switch on the dash. They come up and forward. The seats also have electronic adjustments for hight, angle of both seat back and seat pad independently (as well as extending lower pad forward and backward) plus the side booster pads on both the lower and upper seat. The lumbar support in the back of the seat also electronically adjusts for the small of your back. Also important is the steering wheel can both telescope forward or backward as well as adjust its tilt to compensate for the length of your arms as well as your height so you can see the gauges as well as the road. The mirrors also adjust on both sides electronically up/down and side to side. When you turn the car off the seat slides all the way back / raises up and the steering collapses all the way in to aid exiting. When you return to the car and stick the key in the ignition it returns to your settings. All these adjustment settings can be saved so that a second driver can also save their individual settings so that when they drive the car they merely hit their setting button and the car automatically adjusts everything to them. The airbags automatically adjust for the weights of the driver/passengers. They are the vertically challenged 14 year olds favorite seats. The passenger side gets quite a workout and she is looking forward to wearing out the left side controls in 2 years. I'm sure there are other manufacturers who offer these types of seats in some of their vehicles

There are also after market extenders that can be retrofitted to pedals if that is an issue in some of the vehicles you are considering.

http://www.cartalk.com/content/special-needs-zone-8

You could also go the route of steering wheel hand controls for the gas/brake pedal. I don't know if this is available from any new car manufacturer, but there certainly are aftermarket places that do this on a regular basis. Especially with the high number of returning vets in need of this type of control.

[MaryAnn]

Thanks for all that info; the page about the custom headrests "is not available in the requested language" when I click the link. But I knew they existed.

I could list all the reasons why even customization is not going to work but there really isn't any point. Everything today is designed for mass market, which in the case of vehicles, is the "average male" with all the extras being for people who are larger, not smaller. (Apparently average males are the people who make vehicle buying decisions, according to market research.) I fit well into my 93 Toyota truck and into my 05 Forester, but the new trucks and Foresters are all designed for much taller/larger people. Why this is so, I don't know, except that the decision must have been made based on market research. If you're not an "average male" you can pretty much forget finding anything to fit. I could go on about clothing too....if you're female and not fat you're not going to find anything reasonably priced that fits, either.

Yeah I've devolved into whining. I just saw the 6'4" guy who runs The Doctors whining about the fact that Samoa Airlines is now charging by weight for a ticket, and he felt it very unfair that someone with the same build but only 5'4" tall would pay less for a ticket. I say, Yes! Finally something that my size is an advantage for, although flying on that airline is not on my list for tomorrow. Fuel cost is directly related to weight transported, so from an engineering point of view this charge is completely logical and fair. Why should I pay the same price as a typical tuba player to be transported from A to B when I only weigh about 1/3 what the tuba player does?

MA

[Rick F]

MaryAnn,

Since there are so many people unhappy with the new head-restraints being so far forward, some vendors are offering special pillows that you can hang around the head-restraint which then allows you to tilt the seat back more and still have some support.



See this link:
http://www.amazon.com/Fleece-Support-Pi ... B000QZ1WL0