Basically I have a used '01 and the driver side seat lateral seat support is worn down. The padding on the outside bottom of the seat (the little part that sticks up to hold your butt in place) has lost it's structure from the driver getting in and out of the car while putting his weight on that part. While it doesn't effect my driving position a whole lot (since it is against the door more or less) it is not imparative, but when sitting in my passenger seat a few days ago I noticed how much more glove-like the seat felt. Like I was really planted and not going anywhere. So I was wondering if it was possible to swap my driver and passenger seats so that I can have the less worn seat for me until I can afford to buy some sparcos.

 

No, they can't.

 

Actually... now that I think about it, if you took the rails off, I think you could swap them.

However, the recline lever would be pretty hard to reach. (and it would probably interfere with the seat belt latch.

 

Oh yeah, forgot about the levers. What about taking off the padding and swapping those? Is this possible, or is it just not worth it?

 

Switching the seat pads should be fairly easy. You can't just switch the entire padding/pan, since there is a brace in that goes into the outside bolster. When you take the padding off, you see what I mean. Use tie wraps to hold the pads in place when done. They're alot easier to work with than the rings..

 

I investigated this a couple years ago. The quick answer is NO, you can't swap the bottom pads. The long answer is that there is a metal support bar inside the base part of the seat. On the driver's seat it is on the left(sitting in it), and the passengers seat is on the right.....which makes sense as it is meant as a reinforcement from getting in and out all the time.

I took the seats out of the car and removed the bases, only to find this difference. The other option is to remove the leather and swap just the skins, but this requires you to cut off the bull-rings which are a bit difficult to access along the center of the seat. You'll also need a ring tool to reclose the bullrings after the swap.

Knowing this, if you switch the bases anyway, you'll probably wear out that bolster pretty quick getting in and out without the metal bar support.

-Hockey

 

It is the bolster that is worn out... To some extent atleast, or more specifically probably the padding that surrounds the bolster. So it sounds like this wouldn't help at all. Guess I'll just have to live with it until I can afford some new seats. Thanks for the help.

 

Take the car to a trim shop and get a professional opinion. The bolsters might be replaceable without replacing the leather. Could work out well and save some dough.

 

Ofcourse they can be re-done. The question was whether they could be swapped or not.

 

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