I've had seat discomfort similar to many others in my 2014 E350, Luxury version, although all other factors of the car are great. Might a comfort seat with massage solve the seat issue if I replace the car? Thanks for your thoughts.

 

I won't bore you with my seat pain issues. Suffice it to say it involved having a shop rebuild an Audi seat (no luck) PT and a botched back surgery. I don't have an E, but here's how I solved my problem in my S ( which has terrific, comfortable, adjustable contour seats with heat and massage and still hurt)

1) Order yourself one of these sheepskin seat inserts.



Seat inserts

This is not the cure (but it will help). Next go to your local Michaels (or any craft or fabric store) and buy a few sheets of 1/2" medium density foam. Cut the foam to the contour of the center portion of the seat. (The easiest cleanest way to cut foam is with an electric carving knife. KMart sells them for under $20.)

Put your new foam insert on the seat bottom under the sheepskin. (The sheepskin both hides the unsightly green foam and also keeps the foam in place). Use the foam to elevate the center portion of the seat. Most seat pain is caused by the side bolsters being too steep and putting pressure on your outer thigh or low back. Use foam to create a more level surface. You may need two or three sheets to get the center of the seat bottom level enough with the side bolsters.

If the pain is low back, dial out all of the lumbar support to get the seat back as flat as possible. If you can't get it flat, use a piece of foam on the seat back that stops about 3" before the lumbar bulge begins.

Now drive for a good while, and see if it helps. Make adjustments. Forget about the cosmetics for now...the seat will look ugly... and just work on getting comfortable. Remember that often what makes a new car's seat uncomfortable is that your body has become acclimated to a different seat. Muscles shorten, ligaments set up a certain way, etc. It takes time for you to re acclimate, so the discomfort might recede slowly at first, but you should see improvement and continue to improve.

Eventually your soreness will have healed and you can start removing foam, and ultimately the sheep skin, although they're so damn comfortable you may not want to give it up.

 

In the 80's (and maybe into the 90's) you were nobody if you didn't have sheep skin seat covers. Whatever, happened to them?

Your gray inserts look pretty nice.

 

Good question. That's a stock shot from the company BTW. I think it might be of a Toyota.

The old full sheepskin covers are hard to fit snugly on today's heavily contoured seats and they look pretty bulky and bad, but the inserts are pretty unobtrusive.

I just needed a way to build up the seat padding without it being an eyesore. It took a couple of years, and gradual reductions in the foam but I'm on just the regular seat now. But I can empathize with the OP. When it's bad enough that you want to dump the car, you're pretty frustrated and miserable.

 

After 2 1/2 years of owning this car I started getting a terrible pain after driving more than and hour. Previously it was fine and I wondered what everyone was complaining about. Now I know. My PT said it is classic sciatic nerve symptom. I bought a Wondergel Doublegel pad and after returning from a 5 1/2 hour road trip I can say it worked to stop the pain.

 

Using seatcovers that are generic and not made specifically for your model is a very bad idea. Our seats include side airbags and the sides of the seat are designed to allow for that deployment. The seatcovers would, at a minimum, affect the way those airbags deploy.

 

The generic center inserts won't affect your SRS deployment. The custom full covers from that company have strategic release points that accommodate the bolster airbags.

 

Radiates down thru your buttocks and then down your leg? That can be sciatica, or it can be a bulging disc at L5/S1 compressing that nerve root. You won't feel it in your back, just your leg.

If it persists or worsens maybe talk to your Doc about a lumbar MRI.