Passenger Seat

[dalesky]

My MKZ has the 10-way passenger seat option. I am sure it is a direct swap for a Fusion, with some possible extra wiring. The way people drive these days I bet MKZs start showing up in wrecking yards pretty soon.

Hey!, Lets be careful out there!

[tclemmer]

This is my solution to the "hole" created by the passenger seat. A memory foam 3" pad covered with 1/2 of a Costco sheepskin seat cover. My wife, who is 5'1", is now happy with the height she sits at. The sheepskin makes it very easy to slide in and out of the car. She's still not totally comfortable with the headrest, however. It's nice to see that a fully adjustable front passenger seat will be available as an option on the 2014 model.

 

i decided to take a more lazy approach and purchased this as Wal-mart. We will see if it works well enough for my wife, who also complains about the height of the passenger seat.

 

[B25Nut]

This looks like the perfect cushion for the FFH. The only issue I can see is, if used by itself, how much of a irritation its movement will be when your wife slides in and out of the seat. I can't think of anything you could use to securely hold it in place without possible damage to the fabric or leather underneath.

[tclemmer]

I will have to keep an eye on it when we try it out. Thanks for bringing that up though, had not really thought about that side effect.

[corncobs]

Maybe you could use a piece of non-slip fabric for under carpet. It should at least reduce the sliding and isn't harmful like tape.

[Kaleido]

Yeah, wooden blocks work for me, 2" tall and 3" long and longer bolts of course.

These 2 inch high and 3 inch long wooden blocks placed under the seat rails have worked out great, passengers sit two inches higher and the seat adjustment slides back and forth just fine, I even painted them black so they show.

[hybridbear]

These 2 inch high and 3 inch long wooden blocks placed under the seat rails have worked out great, passengers sit two inches higher and the seat adjustment slides back and forth just fine, I even painted them black so they show.

Did you ever post pictures of this and explain how you did it? Sounds interesting...

[hybridbear]

After again spending hours in the passenger seat on our road trip I can really tell that it's lower. But since I'm 6'3 it doesn't bother me. I can definitely see how it would bother other people though.

[Kaleido]

I slightly redid my original set up of 4 wood blocks. I left the wood blocks in the front, and swapped out the rear blocks to steel pipe.

I wanted to raise the rear a little higher from 2" to just under 3" and I had just the pipe I needed, but the wood worked fine too. I had to remove the seat bolts which are under the plastic covers. You just pop off the covers to expose the bolts. I don't remember the wrench size, sorry, but I removed the bolts and went to Sears and bought longer ones matching the thread and size. The front bolts have a hex head, and the rear ones are "ALLEN" type. The rears have to be Allen type so they recess into the rail properly which allows the seat to travel back and forth. I saved the old bolts so I could easily reset the seat to stock at some future date if I want to. If you're wondering if the seat is safe this way, I don't think there is any problem, it is secured very well to the original mounts. I've done this on my previous cars too, I had a Taurus from 1993 to 2009 and I re positioned the drivers seat back 4 inches on that car which lasted it's whole life. I did the same on my 2009 VW Jetta and then reset it back when I sold the car. You just have to figure out how high you want to go and buy the bolts accordingly. The wood I used was regular 2x4 with a hole drilled in it.

 

[Waldo]

Wow, I realize this is an old thread, but wooden blocks/steel pipe under the seat just makes me cringe. When you hit a wall at 40mph, those seat bolts are the only thing keeping your 200+lbs of seat and passenger from smashing into the dash/airbag at 40mph. If the bolts used are the same size as the stock ones, they're certainly not going to have the shear strength to withstand the extra load created by the leverage of the higher seat. Clamp load and shear load are very different, everything you describe in your post only refers to the clamp load, which is not the important one in a crash.

 

Of course the chances of a crash are small, but could you live with yourself if those bolts broke and your passenger is killed or severely injured in what would be an otherwise surviveable crash?

[acdii]

I was thinking the exact same thing Waldo. Adding 2" padding on top is a lot safer than stilting on bolts.

[Waldo]

Even the padding would worry me. I'm not an expert on crash engineering, but what I do know is that the H-point (basically where your hip is located) is the main focus from which everything else is based. Since people obviously vary dramatically in size, taller and shorter, skinny and wider, the hip point is the one position that just about everybody has in common once you're sitting in the seat. So when you design a crash system, you build it around that H-point. So moving your H-point 2-3 inches higher can certainly affect how the airbags and crash structure will be able to protect you - it puts your head closer to the side curtain, it puts your hip higher relative to the structure in the door, it moves your CG higher relative to the front airbag and seatbelt, it puts your knees closer to the glovebox.

 

We don't know why Ford didn't include height adjustable seats on the 2013 Fusion, it could just be that they wanted to avoid the cost, but it could also be that some component of the crash system wasn't able to handle the higher H-point. With Ford now selling the height adjustable seat on the MKZ and 2014 Fusion, we don't know if they've modified something else in the crash structure or airbag/seatbelt calibrations that now makes it ok. So just bolting a 2014 or MKZ seat into a 2013 doesn't really mean it will be just as safe as a 2014 - maybe.

[GrySql]

From an engineering standpoint what you say is sound but marketing strategies also come into play.

Historically Ford has made a habit of denying the lesser car models upgrades (like passenger power seats) that the upscale models of their car lines will have as standard.

Examples include my loaded Crown Vic that did not have a power passenger seat, the upscale Mercury models did; my Expedition Eddie Bauer did not have a PPS while the Lincoln Navigator did.

There are plenty of other examples in the Ford lineup, but that lineup is getting leaner and that rationale is not so smart now days.

That thinking can be seen in the early 2013 FFH vs the Lincoln Hybrid.

 

Things change, Ford is responding to buyer input, they are reading internet blogs (like this one & the Blue Oval forums) and it shows.

[acdii]

Doesnt the MKZ have a 10 way passenger seat? If so then the height adjustment wouldnt be a factor. I know what you are saying, but that would also vary greatly on the height of the seat in the vehicle for most of those points. In any case the seat belt position wouldnt change in the vehicle.

 

Also when you think about it, a 2" padding for a skinny person wouldn't be any different than no padding for a fat person with a BIG butt! :)

 

but 2" pad for a person with a Huge butt?.......

[hybridbear]

Wow, I realize this is an old thread, but wooden blocks/steel pipe under the seat just makes me cringe. When you hit a wall at 40mph, those seat bolts are the only thing keeping your 200+lbs of seat and passenger from smashing into the dash/airbag at 40mph. If the bolts used are the same size as the stock ones, they're certainly not going to have the shear strength to withstand the extra load created by the leverage of the higher seat. Clamp load and shear load are very different, everything you describe in your post only refers to the clamp load, which is not the important one in a crash.

 

Of course the chances of a crash are small, but could you live with yourself if those bolts broke and your passenger is killed or severely injured in what would be an otherwise surviveable crash?

That's a great point!! Things like this are the real benefit of the Forum to me, the community sharing of information that makes all of us smarter. Thanks Waldo!

[Waldo]

Doesnt the MKZ have a 10 way passenger seat? If so then the height adjustment wouldnt be a factor. I know what you are saying, but that would also vary greatly on the height of the seat in the vehicle for most of those points. In any case the seat belt position wouldnt change in the vehicle.

 

Also when you think about it, a 2" padding for a skinny person wouldn't be any different than no padding for a fat person with a BIG butt! :)

 

but 2" pad for a person with a Huge butt?.......

 

But the MKZ also probably has different calibrations for the airbag and air curtains. When Ford installs height adjustable seats, they test at the both the high and low positions and calibrate accordingly. When they don't offer height adjustable seats, they just test at the one position and calibrate accordingly.

As for the skinny person on a pad versus fat without a pad, I'm saying it is different. The skinny person's center of gravity will be higher relative to the airbag than it should be (remember the bags are calibrated to fire at different rates for different weights of passengers). So the skinny person will be hitting the bag at a different angle than it was intended for.

 

I'm just speculating on most of this, it could be that the differences are very minute, but the possibility is in this case "what you don't know could kill you".

[B25Nut]

I fully agree on the dangers of messing with the mounting of the seat. I'm completely confident, however, that any difference caused by a cushion in the effectiveness of the airbags is negligible. The fact that my wife hasn't complained about her seating position in the seven months since I installed the cushion trumps this remote chance.

[cwb1183]

The fix

http://www.fordfusionenergiforum.com/topic/886-possible-passenger-seat-height-fix-for-2013-ford-fusion/

[Kaleido]

The fix

http://www.fordfusionenergiforum.com/topic/886-possible-passenger-seat-height-fix-for-2013-ford-fusion/

You can get the bolts from Sears Hardware too, that's where I got mine and they fit perfect.

[seascape]

Anyone have the avail. Date/timeframe for the 10-Way passenger seat availability. I've been able to confirm its coming to the 2014 Fusion (Titanium for sure, but if Fordis smart about it, they'll offer it to SE models too so they don't grab bad press about shutting out the majority of their buyers, which buy a lot more SE models. So, in addition to avoiding bad press, they can sell more of them too.) This is the only reason I have not bought the Fusion is the low sitting non-height adjustable passenger front seat (really poor planning by the engineers for the 2013 redesign).

 

The 2014's are already starting to show up on dealer lots, but 'late availability' on the passenger seat 'fix' (10-way front passenger seat), I don't know exactly when 'late availability' is. Honestly, they really don't need to offer the whole 10-way, it's nice, but all that's lacking is height adjustment of passenger seat. so, a non power height adjustable version would be a good alternative too, but I have only seen and confirmed their is a 10-way electric front passenger seat coming to Titanium build as an option (part No. 46B).

Edited July 28, 2013 by seascape

[Dan Newman]

Are you sure the 10-way passenger seat will be available on the 2014 HyTi's? I don't see any indication of that here: http://www.ford.com/cars/fusion/trim/titaniumhybrid/

[acdii]

 

10-way power driver's seat with power lumbar and 4-way power passenger seat with power recline with 4-way adjustable head restraints.

 

Either they didnt update the web page, or they lied to us again.

[B25Nut]

The new passenger seat is one of those "late availability" items. Last week I built a 2014 on the Ford site and it had an Interiior Light Kit as an option for the SE. I e-mailed Ford thanking them for listening to us. The next day the option was gone from the site. I should have kept my mouth shut.

[acdii]

The new passenger seat is one of those "late availability" items. Last week I built a 2014 on the Ford site and it had an Interiior Light Kit as an option for the SE. I e-mailed Ford thanking them for listening to us. The next day the option was gone from the site. I should have kept my mouth shut.

So You're the one to blame!

[jeff68007]

The wife's biggest complaint about the passenger seat is that the seat belt tries to decapitate her every time she rides in my car. (She is 5'4") She has to hold the belt down in order for it to not go across her neck, and yes the belt has been adjusted all the way down.