Hi, I have a whiplash injury and after buying my 2002 S40 discovered that just sitting in the seat kills my neck. Has anyone had this problem (I'd think so since you get kinda safety conscious after you get that first whiplash injury) and come to a satisfactory solution? Right now I'm looking at about a $6000 loss on a car with less than 300 miles on it if I trade it back in.

The seats are power seats and are leather. I've tried all permutations of adjustments and also all kinds of cushions, supports etc. I don't have any problems in my Acura Integra.

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!!!
Regards,
Christy

Thank you again for all the great insights! To follow up: I was told the headrests could not be removed; I'll have to investigate further. Obviously as you say, I would not drive the car that way but it might be something to try for info purposes.

I'm near Burlington, VT which is far north (about an hour from Canada) but we could make a trip down to New Rochelle. Then again, maybe I should find the Porshe dealer up here and see if they have any cars with Recaro seats. Thanks for all the info on the place in New Rochelle, by the way.

Yes, I thought the lack of a bona fide adaptor was a problem. I'm surprised to see the V40 info from their website. Again, more to follow up on. Also, the side airbag on the S40 is in the seat.

I think I test drove with leather. I'm not completely sure. I later went to the showroom to try both cloth seats and manual seats and neither were much of an improvement.

My whiplash occurred in 1994, unfortunately. I was rear-ended and my car was pushed into the car in front of me. The injury was confined to muscle tissue (and perhaps some tearing from the base of the skull) and continues to improve as long as I strength train and stretch (until I bought the blasted Volvo!).

I was interested to see the link to the Cobra seats. Good to know there are options...

Again, many thanks.
Christy

Hi, all. Again I cannot tell you how much I appreciate all the help. I must now confess I sold the car last night. The price was acceptable (although still a big loss) and I am eager to move on (and luckily can afford to do so). I will tell the buyer (a friend whose Ford stalled six times in one day last week and who'd decided she'd had enough) about this great website! She wasn't pleased to learn that Ford owns Volvo but I think she understands the Volvo management is fairly autonomous.

Again, thanks. And I'll try not to be envious every time I see a Volvo S40 on the road.....

Regards,
Christy

Hi Christy,
Sorry to hear the problem caused you to sell your car at a loss, but I do hope you find something that works for your back/neck so you can continue to exist :).
Godd luck and happy motoring when you find the right car.
Scott

Christy,
Just checked on my car, and the headrests are easy to remove (though probably easier if you get a second pair of hands. feel the back of the seat (from the rear) directly under the posts of the headrests (go down to just above where the seat back is hollowed out) you will feel a place where you can push (the rest of the upper seat is solid so you should be able to feel it) push on these two places and lift out the headrest, it is as easy as that. The cover of the headrest also looks like it could be removed, so if you did find a headrest that works in the seat and that you liked you would be able to cover it with the orginal material. Hope that you find a quick solution to your problem.
(also not happy to hear that eevn 8 years down the road even a soft tissue damage whiplash is still affecting you (as this is what I have), it certainly isn't fun).
Scott

It's a long and convoluted story but what was a German coachbuilder (manufacturer of automobile bodies for among others, Porsche) named Reutter was bought by Porsche many years ago, the seatmaking division went through several incarnations until it became a RECARO.

So all Porsches do not necessarily have RECARO seats, and even if the sport-seats in a particular Porsche are manufactured by RECARO they wouldn't necessarily be comparable to the RECARO Orthopaed (spelling??) seats that I'd think you'd be interested in. I was thinking that since Porsche fans are, frankly, even more fanatical than Volvo fans, more likely to modify their car with sports seats snd that PARCARS would likely have some consignment cars around with the seats already installed. If not he'd be more likely to have seats of interest to you in his stock than your friendly RECARO dealer in Burlington.

RECAROs do tend to be featured in sports model Volkswagen, exactly which I can't tell you but, various special editions of the Jetta, GTi and New Beetle turbos have featured RECARO sports seats (I think). Probably easier than finding them in a Porsche in Vermont.

Not to advise you to consider a VW instead but they've had side airbags for years and are at least halfway seious about safety.

Sacrificing the side airbags worries me.

As has also been suggested you might try some other Volvo models and see if you can tolerate the seats in them. I did pay attention to the clearance between my own head and the headrest of my '98 V70 this morning, there seems plenty of space. I did say my wife does hate the seats, though.

Here is a picture of an S40 with Cobra seats http://www.volvospy.com/frameset.php?section=photoalbum
There are other brands such as Sparco which are probably less expensive than Recaro and give you more options to find a comfortable seat. Good luck.

Thanks for the picture post. Does anyone else see the similarity between those seats and their child's car seat??!! It looks like they just plopped those right in there just like the kid's car seat!

Chari

98 S70 T-5
--
S70 T5

I switched from a Benz to the Volvo S70 because the Benz seats aggravated low back injury pain, and the Volvo made it better (but I drove the Volvo first, to make sure). However, the Benz had a headrest which could be rotated froward as well as having height adjustment, so I could drive with it right in the curve of the back of my neck--much more comfortable for the neck. I don't recall if the spacing on the Benz headrest pillars was different from that on the Volvo or not--if you are tall enough that this might work for you, check the junkyards for the right headrest and measure to see if you can just make a straight swap.
On days when my neck is bad, or I'm on rough roads, I have a cylindrical foam Pillow on a loop of elastic that I can hang over the headrest and twitch up and down as the need arises.

Alternatively, check out any other Volvo you can get your hands on, to see if there is a Volvo seat that fits you, then hit the junkyards and just switch the seats! (I recently replaced the bench seat in my pickup truck with Volvo seats--had to fabricate mountings, but well worth it.) For most Volvo seats, you shouldn't have to do more than remove the bolts and wiring. I got the seats from Brian Leppin, a Volvo recycler who gave me a good price on exactly what I needed. bleppin@erols.com
There has to be a solution somewhere that doesn't involve ditching the car!
Good luck

WOW, after three hard months of trying to get any information I can and learning things the hard way, you all have summarized all I've learned and then some in less than 24 hours!!!

To follow up: The pain begins as a stiffness in the neck and then upper shoulders and progresses to the point where everything seems locked up (at which point getting out of the car becomes my number one priority!). Most of my experiments have been done just sitting in the car. I've tried every seat adjustment and can get the pain to be centralized either in the neck, the mid-back, the lower back or a combination. The lumbar support is best left out; putting it in causes instant pain. The most intense pain ends when I get out of the car but significant residual levels remain after. When I'm in the car, the pain gets to the point where I feel nauseous. I missed work because of neck pain for the first time since 1998 trying to "make the car work".

I noticed the headrest protrusion and initially thought of raising myself up but a physical therapist at the Spine Institute of New England suggested a cushion to push me forward. That helped some. (She also said "It is the car, not you. Don't expect to break yourself in to this car!")

Next I realized the anti-submarining bump on the front of the seat was also a problem; lifting my thighs up and messing up the ergonomic 90 degree angle of my knees to the floor. I tried to fashion a cushion to fill in and make the height the same as the front of the seat. It helped a bit more but still within about 15 minutes I HAD to get out of the car.

My next idea was to use an engineering curve to trace out the shape of my Acura seat and try to match it as closely as possible with cushions I cut to fit. Again, some improvement but not to the point where I felt like I could actually drive the car without feeling like I wanted to ditch it by the side of the road!

During all this, I contacted an upholstery place for cars and the guy said he could fashion some cushions but they'd change in six months and he recommended I find a car that is comfortable to begin with. A second guy said "Oh, we'll just raise you up and give you some lumbar support etc..." Clearly he didn't get that this wasn't just a "I don't feel comfy" problem.

I also tried various products from office products to actuall $$ items from medical stores. No luck. I have a Back-Cycler which helps in long road trips in other cars but made no difference here.

Then I found out about Recaro seats. Unfortunately, the only dealer in Vermont doesn't have any seats I could try and I would absolutely have to sit in one (for a while!!) and I still wouldn't know what it was like to sit in one and drive, too. Also Recaro said there isn't a bracket for the Volvo S40 and I'd have to cob something. So I started thinking if I put a new seat in and THEN discover IT isn't comfortable either, I've got a hacked up car and I'll lose even more money. They also acted like reversing it might be a problem. I had similar thoughts about the idea of an old Volvo seat from a junkyard.

I was shocked to hear Volvo had a neck support cushion. After all my interactions with the local dealer and Volvo customer service, no one mentioned this. I must say that it looks like it would only increase the torture as it would eliminate the ability to stretch, rotate etc.

I guess part of this is a confidence problem. The S40 felt okay during the test drive but the physical therapist thinks I was probably hunched over looking at the controls. I tried trading cars with my husband but he finds the seat somewhat uncomfortable (and I couldn't ever be a passenger, either) and his Audi wasn't as comfortable as my Acura.

The car seems like an albatross now. I got it through the Overseas Delivery program which people don't seem to get ("Does it meet US emissions standards?", for example), it has less than 300 miles on it which makes people wonder what is wrong with it, and to sell it I'm competing against 0% financing and $4-5000 incentives (although our local dealer has sold all the 2002 S40s). I even took it to an auction place.

So folks, how big a problem do you think the Recaro seat modification would be? Would you consider a homemade bracket a non-issue?

Money isn't the biggest consideration. I'm mostly tired of being held hostage by a car I ordered in March which finally arrived in July and has been a huge problem every since!!!

I can't thank you all enough. This is an amazing forum! Both my husband and I are astonished by how much effort and info you put into this!

Regards,
Christy

P.S. I got the whiplash injury in the Acura Integra. Maybe if I'd had a Volvo I wouldn't be having this discussion now!

I just wanted to ask if the test drive car had the leather interior or the standard cloth interior. I have noticed that the leather seats tend to be harder and less comfortable (at least in previous volvos, haven't tried an s/v40 with leather so can't comment on the comfort). I am getting over a whiplash injury as well and have not found that my V40's seats are hurting me, but of course everyone is different (but my v40 does have the cloth seats). I have found that I prefer the seat back more upright mow than pre-accident (so that when I am sitting with my hands on the wheel, the headrest is touching my head (i.e. supporting it). but again everyone is different. BTW my whiplash also occured in a honda product (an 99 Civic) and I think if I had been driving my car instead of my friend driving that I wouldn't have been injured as badly. Also when did your injury occur? if it was recent you may find that in a moth or two when the injuy has healed more, that your back may like the seats better (because your muscles are relaxed more) of course this doesn't apply if the injury happened quite a while ago. It isn't good that the pain has been bad enough to make you miss work, and I do hope that you find a solution to your problem.

At least on the 850-SVC70 the headrest can be removed, there are a couple of catches beneath the upholstery of the seatback which are compressed, the headrest is then pulled up and out. Another option we considered was bending the mounts to move the headrest back, this proved impossible. My reason for mentioning this is that if you remove the headrest trying the seat without it might provide some useful information. Driving without the headrest is clearly not recommended for obvious reasons.

I don't know where in Vermont you might live, up or downstate, but a fairly large RECARO dealer is PARCARS in New Rochelle, New York. Paul is about the biggest broker of used Porsches around and he also sells RECAROs.

He should have seats in stock and since he always has a slew of used Porsches in stock, he should have a few cars around with RECAROs that he can show you. http://www.parcars.com/parseating/2_1index.html Paul Resnick, 914-637-8800, or e-mail him at paul@parcars.com

Oh, and if you've flown in an Airbus, you've probably sat on RECARO seats......

I would consider the absence of an adapter for the 40-series Volvo to be a VERY BIG deal, since you certainly want to make sure the seat remains securely anchored to the car in case of an accident. (I'd also consider the side airbag issue to be a big deal, are they in the seat or the door in the SV40?)

HOWEVER, directly copied from the RECARO website, they DO list an adapter for the V40.......

Model
   Year: Volvo V 40
 
Adapter-Part-No. left/right: 86.58.16/26
Hints concernig adapter:

* height-adjustment is omitted
* side-airbag plug included
*
The baseframe does not include a restistor-wire. For vehicles with side airbag please use the universal resistor-wire.
* Side airbag no longer available with installing a RECARO Seat


    
Useable RECARO-seats: Remarks:                    Info:
RECARO trend    
RECARO n-joy  
RECARO sport  
RECARO modular    
RECARO mobility  
RECARO A8    
RECARO CS, TC    
RECARO C-Classic, CT    
RECARO orthopäd  
RECARO variomed    
RECARO ergomed D / DS / DSE  
 
Attention, important information

* For people with small stature it is recommended to use the spacer brackets.
* Installations of RECARO adapter kits that involve seat belt pre-tensioner units or side airbags have to be performed by authorized RECARO dealers only.
* To remove the OEM seat special tools may be necessary like e. g. a torx wrench.
* If a vehicle had an obvious facelift and it is not mentioned on the adapter kit list please contact RECARO.

  
back

Could you describe the problem with a bit more detail? What causes the pain in your case? What would be your most comfortable seating position and what's getting in the way?

The following procedure can take a few hours, but you may want to start with the seat in it's most basic setting. Down all the way, not tilted, lumbar support completely 'soft', etc.

And then work with every adjustment separately: first start by disregarding the steering wheel and pedals, slide the seat all the way to the back, sit in the seat and only adjust the angle of the seat back. Can you get a comfortable seating position? Make sure you sit in the seat for a while, so small irritations become noticable..

Now put the lumbar support on fully 'hard'. Feel better or worse after a while? The lumbar support pushes your lower back forward, causing your shoulders/neck to tilt a little more. May be uncomfortable to you or not. Try adjusting it to a middle setting and again see if it's better or not. The fact that there is a lumbar support doesn't mean you have to use it!

Once you have a basic setting that's comfortable even after sitting in the seat for an hour or so, then you can start including the seating position relative to the pedals and steering wheel.

Don't adjust the seat angle or the back angle anymore. Now only move the seat as a whole forward-backward or up-down to get the best position for your hands and feet.

Again I don't know what is or isn't comfortable to you, but the most relaxed seating position is usually described as follows:

- arms at a 90 degree bend at the elbow with your hands at a 'quarter to three' position on the wheel.
- you should be able to grab the top of the steering wheel with a fully exteded arm, but *without* moving your shoulder away from the seat back
- as to your legs, you should be able to depress any pedal completely to the floor without locking your knee (aka. fully extending your leg).
- related to this: while sitting normally you should have some room between your leg just above the knee and the seat cushion. Your knees should also be slightly bent, like your arms.

Try not to fiddle with different seat adjustments at the same time as this will make it very confusing to get a good seting position. Work on one adjustment at a time.

This may result in a different driving position than you are used to. It can feel a little odd at first, but if this position doesn't cause you pain then you quickly get used to the new position and after a few weeks it's 'normal' to you.

Try to resist the temptation to start adjusting back to your 'familiar' driving position quickly again, because you know that will cause you pain. See the new position through for a while and only make little 'tweaks' to stop any problems you may notice after more extended drives.

The following doesn't really help you, but in case you sell your Volvo it may give an indication for cars to avoid..

Interesingly enough are Volvo seats designed to reduce the chance of whiplash (even before the WHIPS system became standard) by moving the headrest closer to the back of the head as on many other cars (Same goes for SAAB by the way..) as it has been proven that the distance between headrest and head is a major factor in getting whiplash during an accident.

It's also exactly the reason why Volvo keeps fixed headrests. and it seems to pay off if you read this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2304761.stm

The VW/Audi/Skoda headrest problem is notorious. They have many adjustments, but simply can't be set up properly.

Hope this helps a bit..

Bye, Arno.

The bottom line is I know almost no one ever does this, but you've learned it's obviously best to either borrow a demo for a very long test drive or rent the same car for a couple of days before buying.

My wife hates, and iI mean HATES the seats in my Volvo, enough so that she kept trying to wreck the car when it was new.

Daughter immediately falls asleep in them.

Strangely enough, my seats are velour, my wife can tolerate the leather seats in the service loaners better.

I think the problem with **some** people **may** be that the headrest is designed to be located further forward than it is in most car seats with respect to the seat back and that's with the intention of cutting down on whiplash injuries. Versus an Acura. The Volvo seats seem to work well for about 95% of the population and about 5% seem to bitterly complain about them.

What we did in my wife's case was find a lumbar support cushion which moves her back about 1" further forward in the seat. This was found in an office supply store in the chicago loop, similar cushions are available in the office supply chains.

http://www.officemax.com/max/solutions/product/prodBlock.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&expansionOID=-536879631&prodBlockOID=51081

Might also consider different permutations of padding; buy buying locks of foam rubber from an upholstery shop and a roll of duct tape and try cutting various shapes and sizes of supports until you get the seat modified to your liking. When you have it configured to your comfort, have the blocks of padding covered with seat matching fabric or leather by an upholstery shop.

A third possibility is replacing the front seats with RECARO orthopedic seats.

The RECARO Orthopaed

http://www.recaro.com/

Features:

> fully upholstered headrest with height and tilt adjustment
> electrical recline adjustment
> seat backrest release on both sides
> adjustable backrest side bolsters
> shoulder support adjustable to suit the individual
> electrical RECARO airmatic ® system for lumbar support
> flat seat cushion
> extendable seat cushion
> illuminated controls
> climate control package (RECARO vent ® system with seat cushion and backrest heating)
Optional extras (available at extra cost):

> framed headrest
> fabric/leather or leather material (The vent system does not function in combination with leather materials.)
> customer’s own material
All models, all colors, seat covers and accessories
will be displayed in the RECARO SeatGuide.

Good luck! SAAB and Mercedes also have orthopedic seats, try them to compare.

Acura's seats are designed by a back doctor, hence their comfortability, despite the fact I find them uncomfortable. Volvo sells a neck support for their seats, check out www.volvocars.com, go to usa site and click s40 and accessories, perhaps this will help you.