Brothers and sisters, I've come to join you in your misery.
I love everything about the 2015 CX-5 I just bought except the damn seats. I'm a big fella, we keep getting told there's an obesity crisis in the US, and yet car manufacturers are apparently making seats for horse jockeys who race cars in their off time. I test drove a kia sportage, was ready to pull the trigger, but the side molding sat RIGHT on my kidneys. 20 minute test drive and I felt like I'd been kidney punched on both sides for about 2 hours.
The big "laugh/cry" thing about all this is that I see people who don't like the lumbar support in the CX-5. I have a thin as ice lowest-disc in my back and have had some bad episodes of sciatica and yet I loved, LOVED how my lower back felt in the CX-5. NOTHING feels good on my lower back! Just goes to show how we're all different (and frickin' car makers need to understand that)
Anyway, my problem is the CX-5, at least when I test drove it, felt like it was pushing my shoulders in a bit, as in toward each other like a hunch, instead of allowing them to be flat like with the seats in the two ~'00 mini-vans we have now. So the CX-5 kinda aggravated pre-existing issues in my UPPER back. (Seriously, can you even buy a late model car wit a flat backed, well supported seat in 2021? Or should we be spending time sleeping in these g*dd*mn seats so our spines will deform enough to fit into them?
Sorry, got distracted.
Anyway, given the side air bag issue and the sensors and stuff, I'm starting to think that replacement after markets are out of the question, even though I can see the exact flat-backed style I just mentioned. Does anybody know of an aftermarket seat maker that incorporates compatible technology to essentially mimic a stock seat, but designed differently? I'm ready to drop, I dunno, up to $500 for a single driver's seat shaped the way I want. But I haven't found a manufacturer that does this. Right now I've just bought a 30 dollar pillow another poster recommended.
Anyway, no real point here, just sharing my pain with you all...literally.