No matter what I do I cannot get comfortable in my TJ Advance driver's seat, I do have a back problem but my previous cars VX and VT Commodore's seats were fine with Adelaide to Melbourne trips but today I drove from one side of Adelaide to the other in peak hour and my back was so bad that I could not stand up straight for a short time.

I've tried increasing padding, raising etc, but the seat is simply too narrow in both the cushion and the back and lacks support, the whole seat feels too thin, feels more like a seat out of a small 4 cylinder Japanese car than a seat for a V6 family car, I feel that I'm sitting on it rather than in it.
I am a smallish frame 5' 7" (maybe 5' 8" on a good day :)) and about 70kg, and the previous owner was a big overweight fellow (Hope he's not a forum member) so maybe the seat is buggered but the passenger seat does not feel much better.

I have sat in the TL Magnas at the auctions and marvelled at how big, supportive and comfortable the TL's driver's seat is, so much so that the VX seat felt inferior when I drove home. It may look a bit silly and would need seat covers but will a TL seat fit into my TJ?
I think the TL is a full electric seat though and my car may not have the wiring loom to support it. I love my car but cannot stand the driver's seat, so much so that I dread driving it even over short distances of 10 km's or so, any tips or shared experiences would be much appreciated, it reminds me of my old R31 Skyline, loved the car but hated the narrow front seats.

P.S. I did a search but could not find any info on the TL into TJ seat swap.

get your seats rebolstered mate make feel 100% better

get your seats rebolstered mate make feel 100% better

Thanks Mate I'll keep that in mind, it would be an easier alternative to TL seats, I'll PM you but I am in Adelaide and I think you are from N.S.W. so I would obviously have to find a trimmer in Adelaide, could the smaller TJ seats be bolstered up enough to be close to the TL's bigger and thicker cushion support? Would they still look the same, ie same external fabric?

Grab a set of VX seats, have rails made up to adapt them to the magna, get them engineered ;)

tl seat will bolt straight in. running power to the electrics wont be a problem. It will just be a power and earth, maybe not even an earth as the seat could earth to the body of the car.

I'm surprised you think the seats are thin, they are one of the wider seats on the market. When i worked at SuperCheap, we always had to order seat cover in for tehm as the normal ones were too small.

yes the motor trimmer/upholsterer can do it to fit your needs the only thing i foresee happening with tl seats is they have airbags at the side you would have to get a wiring harness maybe a new dash too but you better off rebolstering them


by the way the vx,vz seats are wider at the bottom and taller at the top so being wider at the bottom it will be harder to use the handbrake and being taller at the top has no real effect but using rear view may have a different feel to it

yes the motor trimmer/upholsterer can do it to fit your needs the only thing i foresee happening with tl seats is they have airbags at the side you would have to get a wiring harness maybe a new dash too but you better off rebolstering them

Couldn't you just not connect them? Or is that some legal nono?

If you have a back problem than I would look at a longer term solution. If you are like me your back issues will never truly go away, so you run the risk in the future that some car seats will be OK, others not. If it were me I would go straight to the top of the tree and buy a Recaro. They are the only seats on the planet which are truly orthapedically designed. All others are poor copies - you get what you pay for. Have a base frame made up for the Magna (there is a mob on ebay in NZ who do this for you. Search under Recaro) to take the Recaro. Then just take your Recaro from car to car as you trade and buy cars.

How do I know Recaro's work? Well I am typing this sitting in my Recaro office chair. Prior to buying this I suffered constant back alignment problems and got a sore back if sitting in the normal public service issue chair for more than a few hours. I can sit in this baby all day and suffer no issues. I have inflatable, repositionable lumbar support and thigh rest adjustment to make sure I am good even as I tire. The osteopath and the physio can't believe the difference in alignment. Now I just have convince my wife about a pair for the car.....

tl seat will bolt straight in. running power to the electrics wont be a problem. It will just be a power and earth, maybe not even an earth as the seat could earth to the body of the car.

I'm surprised you think the seats are thin, they are one of the wider seats on the market. When i worked at SuperCheap, we always had to order seat cover in for tehm as the normal ones were too small.

When I said thin I meant thin as in top to bottom, but they don't seem very wide across either, I am not a large man and my bum fills the seat hip to hip. But I have not taken a tape measure to them and don't have another car now to compare them to, but the TL seat looks to have far better cushioning and support as long as the electrics will hook up, do all TL Magnas have side airbags in the seats or were they an option?

If you have a back problem than I would look at a longer term solution. If you are like me your back issues will never truly go away, so you run the risk in the future that some car seats will be OK, others not. If it were me I would go straight to the top of the tree and buy a Recaro. They are the only seats on the planet which are truly orthapedically designed. All others are poor copies - you get what you pay for. Have a base frame made up for the Magna (there is a mob on ebay in NZ who do this for you. Search under Recaro) to take the Recaro. Then just take your Recaro from car to car as you trade and buy cars.

How do I know Recaro's work? Well I am typing this sitting in my Recaro office chair. Prior to buying this I suffered constant back alignment problems and got a sore back if sitting in the normal public service issue chair for more than a few hours. I can sit in this baby all day and suffer no issues. I have inflatable, repositionable lumbar support and thigh rest adjustment to make sure I am good even as I tire. The osteopath and the physio can't believe the difference in alignment. Now I just have convince my wife about a pair for the car.....



bride seats are orthopedically correct ,as well as light weight but bride seats are $1000 minimum per set but yeah recaro are tops as well but instead of ordering a set of recaro's then getting rails done just get a set of seats out of a evo 7,8 or 9 save a lot on postage and engineering and whatnot

Are the Verada seats different in terms of support. I know the covering materials are up market velour, leather).

Are the Verada seats different in terms of support. I know the covering materials are up market velour, leather).



not really dood may be a slight difference in the lumbar support but i have been making pre-made sets of seat retrims and they seem to fit veradas with no real problem

just re the side airbags thing on the TL vs TJ

im pretty sure that you could just put the TL (with side airbags) into the TJ, *if* it(the TJ) DIDNT leave factory with side airbags... then you dont have to plug them in.
if they arnt plugged in - they wont deploy (right? coz they need a trigger signal to deploy).

i dont think you would need an engineers certificate for that? i could (and probably am) wrong though..

if however you wanted to go the other way, and put non-side airbagged TJ seats into a TL that would have left factory with side airbags, that would be an illegal mod.

im pretty sure that you could just put the TL (with side airbags) into the TJ, *if* it(the TJ) DIDNT leave factory with side airbags... then you dont have to plug them in.
if they arnt plugged in - they wont deploy (right? coz they need a trigger signal to deploy).



this is what i understand to be true

The TL seats are the answer to my problem but the wreckers here want $650 for a front pair so I might look at other avenues, I would have thought I could buy a TL wagon interior (seats and door trims) for less than about $800, and it would look better with matching door trims than with 2 comfortable but out of place front seats.

It is my understanding that the TL seats were designed locally to bring the seat comfort level up to the same level as Ford and Holden as well as incorporating side airbags,

whinge time :( These seats should have been out in the first TJ model and so should the LCD odo dash been out, but don't get me started on frustrations regarding our other local manufacturers Holden and Ford, there are elements of frustration with them to.

All TL seats came from the factory with airbags as standard fitment.

I agree....the seats in my S2 TJ Advance stink. No-where near enough padding - feels like sitting on a board.

I had an EL Futura for last car, and never even thought about how good the seats were.

Im gonna try some decent, thick wooly seat covers. Probably need to spend at least 150 smackers though...

See if you can sit in a couple of Verada's, see what you think of the seats in those. I find my KJ seats far more comfy than the lower end seats, and when I told my old KE seats to Type40 he certainly seemed genuinely impressed with them compared to the TJ Exec seats that we ripped out, so yeah give em a go perhaps.

I think the seats are fine, they do feel a little cheap, but I'm 5'7"/58kg no problems here. (are the Sports seats any different apart from fabric?)

I'd still like to source some Recaros, like what the Legnum Super VR4s get.

See if you can sit in a couple of Verada's, see what you think of the seats in those. I find my KJ seats far more comfy than the lower end seats, and when I told my old KE seats to Type40 he certainly seemed genuinely impressed with them compared to the TJ Exec seats that we ripped out, so yeah give em a go perhaps.
KJ ei seats > TR seats... when I had them in the TR.

KJ ei seats seem to be on par with TJ exec seats imo...

Have to agree. But aside from how uncomfortable and small the TJ seats are, there is also the poorly designed ratchet adjustment which prevents me from getting a perfect driving position. They should have had an infinite adjust backrest lever like the Camrys or a rotating wheel like the Falcons.

KJ ei seats > TR seats... when I had them in the TR.

KJ ei seats seem to be on par with TJ exec seats imo...
TR seats destroy the standard 3rd gen seats IMO. I'm more comfortable in the TR than 3rd gen magnas. Even the KJ seats could hold you better but there's a definite difference between the two.

TR seats destroy the standard 3rd gen seats IMO. I'm more comfortable in the TR than 3rd gen magnas. Even the KJ seats could hold you better but there's a definite difference between the two.

Good point, I borrowed a TR Magna once and was impressed with how comfortable the car was over all, I wonder if high end TR (Verada) seats would be an option in the TJ? Are the TR/TS Verada seats electric? (I really miss my VT's electric seat, but don't miss anything else about it)
A couple of seat covers and they'd be OK, they'd probably be very cheap to buy, I'd still rather the TL seats but at $450 per pair it's not economically viable.

SupremeMoFo I'm smallish to about 5' 7" and 68-70kg but I still notice the lack of padding compared to our local falcadore seats, I feel I'm sitting on them rather than in them and tend to fall out, slide off around corners even when not going quickly.

why not just buy the drivers seat and put some seat cover's over both of them,then swap back the old seat when you go to sell the car.

People put 3rd gen Verada leather seats in their 2nd gens, so I'd think that it would work the other way around as well?

why not just buy the drivers seat and put some seat cover's over both of them,then swap back the old seat when you go to sell the car.

Yeah I'd rather just the TL driver's seat but they are usually sold in pairs.