Seat comfort - cloth vs... ???

[drivesacar]

Yesterday the dealer let me take a 3 i-Touring for a long test drive. Love the car, but somehow could not get comfortable in the seats. Interestingly, the 2013's extra-firm seats had kept me from buying that model, so I'd held out for the 2014. The seats are definitely better in the 2014, but I still found the lumbar support seemed to dig into my back and made it hurt to drive after awhile. I don't usually have problems with car seats, even cheap ones, and I'm used to driving compacts. But I'm a 5'5" female, relatively thin, and probably a little older than the target demographic. So I'm not sure if Mazda just designed these seats for some other body types, or could there be an adjustment I haven't hit on yet? I went back and asked the dealer what he thought - he tried a different angle on the back, which helped some, but also did get uncomfortable after a while.

Any thoughts? The power seats with manual lumbar adjustment on the i-GT might solve it, but they seem to come only in black leatherette. Never had anything but cloth in my cars, but as I live in Southern California and park in the sun year-round, I'm guessing black leatherette is not a good choice. :-/ Would really like to buy the car, but don't want to risk back pain from it.

 

[borjeboy]

There is a white leatherette to

Otherwise i guess you should get another car. I have had the same problems but with other cars

 

[CXVille]

We find the cloth seats to be very comfortable in our i Touring. We spent about 4.5 hours in the car yesterday, for the first long drive in it. Very comfy. Unfortunately, if the seats don't fit, they don't fit.

 

[drivesacar]

Do you find it helps to put the seats relatively upright, or somewhat reclined compared to other cars that have less lumbar?

 

[CXVille]

Don't really know. I just moved it around till it felt comfortable. Make sure your butt is all the way back in the seat.

 

[WildMidwest]

Any thoughts? The power seats with manual lumbar adjustment on the i-GT might solve it, but they seem to come only in black leatherette. Never had anything but cloth in my cars, but as I live in Southern California and park in the sun year-round, I'm guessing black leatherette is not a good choice. :-/ Would really like to buy the car, but don't want to risk back pain from it.

I drove both the iTouring and sGT. I found both models' seats pretty comfortable compared to other B and C segment cars, but I didn't have as much saddle time as you did. I was seriously underwhelmed by the SGT's adjustable lumbar support which operates via a flimsy manual crank. That feature wasn't worth $5: hardly any lumbar support at all. I will probably use a lumbar pillow for longer road trips to avoid a backache. The cloth seats felt quite comfortable for short trips. Like you, I prefer to avoid leatherette. Power seats do little but add to vehicle weight. Seriously, how difficult is it to push a seat forward-backward a couple inches?