Bad design of seat backs

[Kleynie]

That’s fine if you’ve read the manual but I’ve only had the car a month and been in Kenya for 2.5 weeks, I’m only a few pages into the manual at present. Surely there should be some fail safe to stop this happening.

[MikeM]

That’s fine if you’ve read the manual but I’ve only had the car a month and been in Kenya for 2.5 weeks, I’m only a few pages into the manual at present. Surely there should be some fail safe to stop this happening.

Should have took it on the plane to read

[Tim92gts]

That’s fine if you’ve read the manual but I’ve only had the car a month and been in Kenya for 2.5 weeks, I’m only a few pages into the manual at present. Surely there should be some fail safe to stop this happening.

Should have took it on the plane to read

I read it online before i'd even got the car.

Maybe that's a bit too obsessive?

I've forgotten most of it but occasionally a bell rings when I get a problem.

Most cars I've owned need the headrests removed if you want to put the rears down with a tall driver.

[Kleynie]

Most cars I've owned need the headrests removed if you want to put the rears down with a tall driver.

I've probably been spoilt as my last two cars were F07 BMW 5GT's and there was acres of rear space for the seats to go down without removing the headrests.

[On-Track]

There's a touch of "chicken and egg" about this. A few weeks ago, for the first time in nearly four years of ownership, I lowered the rear seat backs. The head rest on the driver's side fouled the driver's seat back so I adjusted the head rest. The point is because I was out of the car, the driver's seat was back in the comfort entry/exit position.

Presumably, in order to lower the seat backs with the driver's seat in the driving position the key would have to be in the ignition and the driver's door closed.

[Guy]

Kleynie - any chance that you could post some photos of the damage?

Also, let us know how you get on with removing the seat backs to push out the deformation. I was going to look at replacing my seat backs with the ones with net storage, until I looked at the prices (£250+ each!). Unfortunately the second hand (breakers) market tends to sell complete seats.

[rydercowan]

I think I may have identified the reason for the concave seat back on the passenger side of our MY2017 S. Experimentation shows that with the rear seatback folded forward, and the rear headrest in place, it's not possible when reclining the front seat for the seatback to come into contact with the headrest. This is because when the hard edges of the front seatback touch the hard top edge of the rear seatback, stopping further reclining, there is still a small gap between the headrest and the front seatback. The risk of damage is thus averted.

[Tom 2000]

Disable Comfort Mode? Wouldn’t know where to start.

[nsm3]

This happened to my passenger seat, when I was carrying a load on the left side and my daughter decided to put the seat into 'recliner' mode. It has been that way for about a year and hasn't popped back? Good indication of the lack of rear room compared to the Q5. Will get the OPC to look at it at 2 year service.

[Kleynie]

I tackled the seats yesterday, in the end I managed to pull the moulding out enough on one side to get my hand behind it and push the dent out. However, it is very easily dented again by a slight press of a knee, so I might look at completely removing the panels and reinforcing them with ply or something.

It’s going in for a weeks worth of detailing tomorrow, so I won’t see it until next Weds.