Different backs for different folks but in every modern car I have, I need a lumbar support. I use the wedge shaped ones made from memory foam that go at the bottom of the seat back. The factory lumbar supports are too high up the seat backs to provide any support for the lumbar region. The lumbar is the bottom 7 vertebra in your back, not in the middle of your back.
Your pain sounds like you are pinching your sciatic nerve which is caused by hard seats that don’t conform to your butt. A memory foam seat cushion should help you for this.
The reason for memory foam is that it conforms to your shape and reduces pressure points.
It is a lot cheaper to try different cushions and lumbar supports that to trade vehicles, especially if the new vehicle causes the same problem. Also check out any nearby truck stops. They will be more expensive but they are made for people who drive all day (and night) who really need the best. Ask the truckers what they use.
That may well be true, but that model’s abysmal handling characteristics could easily have led to catastrophic, life-threatening consequences for their owners and passengers. (Translation: Those old Buicks were designed for ultimate comfort while riding in a straight line on a boulevard. If you had to take sharp turns at anything faster than walking speed…abandon all hope…)
If I had to choose between seating comfort and safe handling/road holding, I would have to cast a vote in favor of safe handling/road holding.
We took a I think it was a Midwest Airlines flight once. Can’t remember to where, but maybe Boston. We had a stop in Milwaukee anyway which was interesting. At any rate the seats were wide, all leather, and comfortable. Plus they made hot chocolate chip cookies in flight. Now defunct.
@VDCdriver. Consumer Reports noted exactly what you said. The 1952 Buick wasn’t the greatest handling car even by 1952 standards. Gasoline mileage was abysmal even by 1950s standards. The acceleration with the Dynaflow automatic transmission wasn’t great and the straight 8 engine was out of date and replaced in the Super and Roadmaster with a V-8 engine of the same displacement. However, the seats were comfortable and the driving position gave a good view of the road ahead. I drove cars of that vintage – I got my driver’s license in December of 1957. I’ve seen improvements over the years and I wouldn’t want to go back to those cars of the 1950s.
It depends on the airline. Southwest is generous with snacks, United is not. United will sell you food though. You can also buy food on the concourse after security. Some of my business travel is not covered by my employer, and I still buy food in the concourse. I got a sandwich and chips at Panera yesterday flying out of Phoenix to Baltimore. It was probably $3 more than I would have paid at a Panera outside the airport, but I couldn’t carry anything past security and I want willing to wait until I got to BWI. At least per diet covered the meal yesterday.
I experienced this problem one time. I was a passenger in my friend’s Honda Civic. I am what Bill Russell used to refer to as a “wide body.” I’m overweight but my chest area is quite wide. I attributed my problem to the fact that the side bolsters on the seat were too close together, not leaving a wide enough seat back so that my body was squeezed in between the bolsters. Having been to quite a few auto shows and having sat in a number of new cars I’ve noticed this particular issue with a number of cars. Some cars, especially compacts, especially Asian makes, are designed for smaller people. This may be part of your problem.
I absolutely prefer the better handling and safety of current cars to the cars of my youth. But I did prefer the more upright seating of older cars.
My car purchases of 2007 and 2014 cars I would have preferred the seating of a mid-sized SUV but my budget allowed for a base level mid-sized sedan, so I made the best of it. However, in test drives I quickly ruled out small SUVs like a Rav4 or CRV due to hard, cramped seats, lousy driver visibility, and how they made me seasick. No two people have the exact same parameters for seat comfort and other factors. It just takes some time and effort test driving to find what works best within available budget.
That, really, is the only solution. Lots of time test driving each vehicle that looks promising.
As you said, back problems are extremely wide-ranging in their details. The solution thus becomes extremely individual.
Especially today, when seats are all made of molded foam designed to force the sitter into some theoretically perfect position… while being filled with compromises to attempt to accommodate perhaps 80% of all the potential buyers on the market. Sitting in a true bucket seat from the '50s or '60s makes me realize how good they were before seating became a “science” (I use the term loosely). Those old seats evolved into excellence. The knowledge of how to make comfortable seats has, I believe, been lost to the auto industry.
Perhaps seats should be designed only by old guys with back problems.
I tend to agree . . . except old people don’t have the market cornered, as far as back problems go
Anyways, if I were to design automotive seats, I guarantee they would bear little resemblance to the typical “race-car inspired” bucket seats that are so prevalent today . . . the ones that are so severely “contoured” that they cut into your sides, don’t provide enough thigh support, and you can’t get comfortable, in SPITE of the fact that they’re adjustable in every conceivable way. Who cares how high-tech and expensive they are, if they simply don’t do their job?
Who gets the final say-so on these lousy modern designs?
Some young guy in his late 20s or early 30s, who is in perfect physical health?
Or some guy who KNOWS the seats are uncomfortable, but will ALWAYS choose form over function?
If it’s the latter, they are actively providing a disservice
If I were grading the designers who came out with the bucket seats in the current model Ford Superduty trucks, I’d give them a glaring F, no ifs ands or buts about it. I just mentioned that, because it pertains to seats, and we were talking about the best trucks in a recent discussion
The bucket seats in my Rivieras were very comfortable and I could drive all day with no problem. The one issue though was the seat angled so much that if you spilled a little coffee, it would seep right to the back and you’d have to go home and change pants again. If I was fast enough to lift up off the seat and pull over and grab a napkin . . . I know don’t drink coffee, but come on.
The seats in newer vehicles in general seem harder and less cushy/comfortable than the cars of 10-20 yrs ago to me. The seats in my wife’s 2013 Toyota Highlander are pretty comfortable, though.
Apparently there’s improvements being developed but probably not available yet. From a column in Car & Driver last may.
" Ray Scott, president of the seat division for Lear Corp., which last year made the seats for 17 million vehicles, acknowledges that car seats have got to evolve. “Car seats are designed for the first 15 minutes of ‘soak time’ in the dealership,” he told me, referring to the often much-too-brief period during which prospective buyers decide if their favored new car has comfy chairs. However, he says, “the occupants are not being supported over the long run.” And what’s worse, the buyer often doesn’t even know it, having adopted a seating position that seems perfectly comfortable but is actually doing long-term damage.
What happens? Scott and his team, many of whom, coincidentally, have back issues, hired a consultant, Detroit-area chiropractor and disc specialist Dr. Winsen Zouzal, and studied butts in seats to a fare-thee-well, using sophisticated pressure sensors to determine “hot spots” where the spine is misaligned and the backs of the thighs are squeezed. They learned that traditional upmarket adjustments such as power lumbar control are inadequate. These rectangular inflatable “footballs,” as Scott calls the pneumatic bags within the seat, often just create pressure points that make you uncomfortable without doing any actual good.
Lear is shopping around a concept that it calls the Intuitive Seat, a sort of living, breathing bucket that is always in motion. The seat can recognize your pressure points and adjusts itself according to your ideal position for spinal alignment, then keeps adjusting and massaging as you fatigue and shift around. Instead of footballs, the Intuitive Seat has what Scott and Zouzal describe as a pneumatic catcher’s mitt, or triangular bags that embrace your upper thorax below your shoulders and actually lift it slightly, engaging the core, opening up your airways, and taking pressure off the beleaguered discs below. It gives the driver the option of phasing in the new seat position over time so that you have a chance to get used to what may at first seem like an awkward, upright seat adjustment, and it has sport and comfort settings depending on your driving mood. Scott says a few automakers are interested."
Dark colored slacks, @bing, will work too. They won’t help with a wet rear, though.
I wonder if a lot of the problem is that people are not only living longer, but are still able to drive a lot longer than in previous generations. Since there are so many aching Boomers, the seat manufacturers are paying more attention. I do remember the sofas in the 1960s and 1970s. They went away partly because the young Boomers didn’t need or want them.
Instead of spending the next twenty years trying to “improve” current seat designs, or to seek an entirely new design, manufacturers might be well served to go back and look at the bucket seats of 50-60 years ago. Those were comfortable then, and they’re still far superior to modern buckets with their hard sculpted foam and mountainous side supports. My son’s previous car had “sport seats”, and while they could probably keep you in place at 4Gs lateral, they were horrible to get in and out of and terrible to ride in.
It is, however, comforting to know that the industry realizes their seats are terrible and the “football” bladders make them even worse. Perhaps by the time my son is elderly they’ll finally be able to make decent seats.
This is what I have replaced the Camry with. Traded for it evenly fortunately! 2018 Sonata SEL with only 5 miles on it. Thanks guys for all the stories and advice! Y’all rock, literally!
I think an ideal vehicle would be a Divco box van that was designed for milk delivery back in the 1940s through the 1950s. The Divco had dual controls so it could be driven in a seated or standing position. It would be great for long drives. When you need to stretch, you could just stand up and drive for a while.
I owned a 2011 Sonata before trading for the new Camry. The seats are exactly the same. And I took it on a one hour test drive. In the Camry, my hips started hurting 15 minutes into a trip. No pain in the new Sonata and the seat bolsters are more flat than the seats in the Camry.
Gotta kinda agree that the seats of yesteryear were more comfortable. The bucket seats in my Morris and VW were actually comfortable but were just the plain ole flat seats, and not contoured to hold you in place.
As far as us living longer and thus more back problems, I guess the computers were wrong. I remember back in the 80’s I did a computer life span test and one question was how much you drove, and another was if you ever had a drink. Well I drove about 40,000 miles a year and would have one or two drinks a month. The computer calculated the two and figured the odd of my driving while drinking was pretty high. I would therefore be dead about 30 years ago. I don’t know what that has to do with anything but maybe the kids were figuring on a younger crowd to sell cars to because we were supposed to die years ago.
