Less lumbar = more comfort

F

fzootb

Member
Hi all. Back once again in an E89. This time a 35iS well known to the forum. I love it, but really need less lumbar from the MSport Design Pure Traction seats to make it more fitting for my ‘banana bent’ back driving position.

These seats are heated and electric but don’t have the lumbar control. Anyone have anything useful on link etc about how to reduce this lumbar amount? I don’t want to fit aftermarket seats, I love the heating element and everything else about them, just need less lumbar. Is it an upholstery job? DIY? Anyone done it?

Thanks
 

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There’s not much lumbar support there ..have you adjusted the side bolsters?

Major effort to adjust the lumbar support ..
 
Yep, it's definitely the bit of the seat in the lower middle causing the issue. I'm ok with major effort, as long as I know how/someone can recommend how.
 
I had the same problem as you, fzootb. The solution was a month's driving and a lot of fiddling with the with the seat controls, including, as B21 says, opening the side bolsters full wide.

Even now, 8+ years on, if one of my Romanian car cleaners changes the seat positions, it takes me a day or two to get them right again.
 
OP, your seat doesn’t have the 4-direction button to control the lumbar support ? Mine does, and the adjustments between high and low, and back and front are massive.

Am I missing something ?
 
The lumbar control wouldn’t help your back anyway OP, it merely pushes the seat back out in 2 different places, the opposite of what you want obvs.

Could you maybe buy some seat foam, put a cover on the seat, tape the foam to the seat top and experiment with trimming it with a surform or similar, then if you’re successful see if a trimmer can insert it into your seat..? Faff of a job but personally I can’t think of much else other than searching for supports for the top of the back. :?

Maybe buy a cheap E89 seat off the bay and experiment with that then take whatever you come up with to a trimmer, or even take the spare seat to somewhere that deals with car seat back issues.
 

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Marcoose said:
OP, your seat doesn’t have the 4-direction button to control the lumbar support ? Mine does, and the adjustments between high and low, and back and front are massive.

Am I missing something ?
Click to expand...
Yes you're missing something, not sure what though :rofl:
Not all seats had all options, it was down to the original purchaser and what they opted for.
Options for seats:
Standard or Sport
Manual or Electric - memory
+ heat
+ lumber
+ side bolster

So, potentially, 16 different configurations were available.
And writing that down makes it so much clearer as to why I can't find exactly the combination that I'm after to upgrade mine, which is red, sport, heat, full electric and in mint condition, or any colour/condition as I'll probably have them recovered anyway.
 
fzootb said:
I love it, but really need less lumbar from the MSport Design Pure Traction seats to make it more fitting for my ‘banana bent’ back driving position.

These seats are heated and electric but don’t have the lumbar control. Anyone have anything useful on link etc about how to reduce this lumbar amount? I don’t want to fit aftermarket seats, I love the heating element and everything else about them, just need less lumbar.
Click to expand...
Although, like yours, my 35iS has no lumbar control, its lumbar area softened over time and adapted to my back. That said, my seat doesn't have your decorative stripe. Does this stripe harden the seat in the lumbar area, perhaps, and, if it does, could you soften it?
 
[/quote]
Although, like yours, my 35iS has no lumbar control, its lumbar area softened over time and adapted to my back. That said, my seat doesn't have your decorative stripe. Does this stripe harden the seat in the lumbar area, perhaps, and, if it does, could you soften it?
[/quote]

The stripe is softer than the rest of it, and the seats have technically done c.78k miles. I’m a bigger guy with lower back surgery 8 years ago, so a combo of lower seat sides and a softer lumbar back might be the way to go. I don’t really want to mess up the fairly rare interior so I may well get an aftermarket seat and go from there.
 
Seat trimmer..
 

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Although, like yours, my 35iS has no lumbar control, its lumbar area softened over time and adapted to my back. That said, my seat doesn't have your decorative stripe. Does this stripe harden the seat in the lumbar area, perhaps, and, if it does, could you soften it?
[/quote]

The stripe is softer than the rest of it, and the seats have technically done c.78k miles. I’m a bigger guy with lower back surgery 8 years ago, so a combo of lower seat sides and a softer lumbar back might be the way to go. I don’t really want to mess up the fairly rare interior so I may well get an aftermarket seat and go from there.
[/quote]


You find adjusting the other controls may help..I had series back issues which in part I resolved by moving the seat a fair amount in different directions…also..adjusting the seat on a long drive I found useful to change pressure points
 
Instead of removing foam lower down, which will likely result in sagging seat covering, why don't you try adding foam further up the seat back?
 
My lumbar discomfort when I first had my car was so bad that I sought and found a man in Northampton who made-to-measure sheepskin seat covers for cars and aircraft.

(His work looked excellent, but the deal fell through over some minor misunderstanding, by which time my seats had improved.)
 
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