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SE Seats and my bad back.

I

idealsociety

New CEG'er
Joined
Mar 13, 2011
Messages
17
Location
New Ulm MN
So my 99 SE seats are killing my back. The complete lack of lumbar support makes my 120mile a day commute absolutely horrendous.

So heres my question:

Do the SVT seats have more lumbar than the LX/SE seats? I had a 3000GT VR4 that had an inflatible lumbar bladder in it along with power adjustable bolsters and everything else and they were amazing to sit in. Im going to assume though that the SVT's are just standard power seats that have no additional filling/foam/adjustments but just leather instead of cloth?

Id rather not have to have my seats done up at an upholstry shop just so i can drive my car and even worse yet, i dont want to sell it because its so hard on my back :(
 
The inflatable lumbar support in the SVT seats might help but you may want to think more about the suspension behavior of most Contours. I have a hard time driving my SVT for long distances due to the constant jiggling due to the suspension tuning of the car. Basically, the jiggling is acting like a jack hammer on my back such that it doesn't matter what the lumbar setting is. Conversely, my 2004 VW Golf doesn't have much lumbar support yet I can do 10+ hour drives without much trouble (very smooth, non-jiggly ride).

Another thing to consider is "How much of your drive is stop'n'go driving that causes lots of mental aggravation." Both my SVT and Golf are stick shifts. If I get stuck in long traffic jams, the constant working of the clutch plus the aggravation causes lower back spasms.
 
Had this exact problem with my SE seats, I picked up a set of leather seats out of a Mystique in the junkyard, and I can tell you that your problems will be solved with the inflatable lumbar support. It's definitely not a problem with suspension for me at least, the problem is that there is absolutely zero lumbar support on the cloth seats, if you look at them they are curved outward at your upper back, and inward where your lower back sits, it's entirely counter intuitive and just the addition of a tiny air bag to fill that gap was enough that I no longer have ANY back pain after riding in the contour for hours at a time.

In short OP just junk those cloth seats and get leather seats, SVT seats might be nicer, but any leather seats from a contour or mystique will have the lumbar support you need, fixed my problem 100%.
 
Any lumbar is better than the cloth seats IMO, I have never had any sort of problem with my back but those cloth seats just killed me.
 
yes the SE Sport cloth seats also had lumbar support. however they suck when compared to the leather seats.
 
My SE Sport did not have lumbar on the cloth seats, and I gave my drivers seat to Zerohour (Scott) because the cloth pattern we had was apparently hard to find (he has an SE Sport as well) and my seats were exactly the same as his. Maybe it was only in later '99-00 SE Sports.
 
My 95 Mystique LS had very "comfy" leather seats w/lumbar compared to my 95 Contour SE w/leather and lumbar that are more "sporty"
 
it seems to be a rare very late option in 2000 i guess, my grandma's contour is the exact same model/trim as mine (SE Sport V6, except mine is a 99) and her seats look identical except that they are power and have a manual lumbar adjustment whereas mine are standard seats with no lumbar at all.

So far, none of the JY's locally have any contours with power seats, leather or non :(
 
You may know this already but check out Mystique leather seats also. I swapped a full 99 Mystique leather interior into my Contour. I drive 100 miles a day and my old ass is not complaining.

Edit: I just noticed royalblue's post above.....
 
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