My drivers seat is starting to sag just a little bit after 5 years of use. I'd love to be able to switch the driver/passenger seats, as the passenger seat is practical unused. Without having ever taken them out, it looks on the surface as if they would be interchangable with even the front/back adjustment being in the same location. But the recline release is a problem. Has anyone else ever entertained this sort of idea and investigated whether the recline release can be swapped on the driver/passenger seat? Are there any other issues that would have to be considered that I'm missing?

 

I suspect you can remove the seat bottom or backs and swap em, it's just the frames that aren't interchangeable. If I'm wrong about swapping, worst case you can DEFINITELY swap the covers, but that won't help you with the sagging.

Take them out and start swapping pieces! If you can't make it work, you put em back the way you had em.

 

Cyclon has some instructions someplace on s2ki on how to recover seats and repair the crushed foam. You can also buy a new foam cushion from Honda for about $200 (comes with the seat frame too unfortunately). The leather is what is EXPENSIVE.

 

There is a metal support frame on the outboard sides of the bottom seat cushion. If you swap them, the now non-supported cushion will collapse even quicker than before. The simplest solution is to re-pack or replace the foam.

 

isnt the belt buckle thing built into the seats?

 

I wasn't thinking he meant the side bolster, I assumed when he said sag that he was referring to the actual bottom of the seat. Good point.

 

Yes, but the bottom cushion (and side bolsters) are independently attached to the seat frame, so swapping the cushion side to side does not affect the attachment of the seat belt receiver.

 

I took MikeyCB's advice and ripped them out last night and started disassembling. The seat bottoms appeared to be completely symmetrical. Everything that's "side specific" is part of the frame or back. I didn't see (or feel) any evidence that the outsides were reinforced more than the insides (I have an '02). Once I removed the seat frame and backs, it was quite easy to swap them. The whole process took about an hour, and it gave me a chance to vacuum under the seats as well. I'm happy with the results.

 

There is a metal bar that helps support the one side, if you swap bottoms it will NOT have this metal bar support and you will cause it to sag in no time.

You have to repair the foam on the drivers side bolster

 

iDomN8U was exactly right. I checked it out and what was now the outside had no support in the bolster like the original outside had. So I took them back apart and switched them back. I can live with the soft seat bottom. I'm sure not going to spend the 200 clams Honda wants for a seat bottom.