Passat SEL - how to improve seat comfort?

Love the car...hate the seats! I have the SEL model which has the stupid swede inserts in the seat....who thought of that great idea.

Any suggestions on how to improve seat comfort? Remove them and bring them to an interior shop? Replace them with ?

After driving 2 hours or so, my back and legs are killing me. No issues with driving my MB for long drives. Anyone else with these problems?

Car has 85K on it now and hits 48-50mpg on summer road trips.

ekm said:

Love the car...hate the seats! I have the SEL model which has the stupid swede inserts in the seat....who thought of that great idea.

Any suggestions on how to improve seat comfort? Remove them and bring them to an interior shop? Replace them with ?

After driving 2 hours or so, my back and legs are killing me. No issues with driving my MB for long drives. Anyone else with these problems?

Car has 85K on it now and hits 48-50mpg on summer road trips.

Click to expand...

I don’t know what year yours is, but I have run into the exact same issue about 2000 miles into me on in the vehicle. I have owned mine since late 2011 and I haven’t really found a “fix”. I just deal with it.


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I bought an aftermarket foam pad with a color close to the "cornsilk" color of the seat and it helps a little bit.
(this is for my '13; my '05 seat is pretty comfortable but a foam pad also helps that too)

ekm said:

Love the car...hate the seats! I have the SEL model which has the stupid swede inserts in the seat....who thought of that great idea.



Any suggestions on how to improve seat comfort? Remove them and bring them to an interior shop? Replace them with ?



After driving 2 hours or so, my back and legs are killing me. No issues with driving my MB for long drives. Anyone else with these problems?



Car has 85K on it now and hits 48-50mpg on summer road trips.

Click to expand...

Cc executive fronts. Never look back at the oem crap.

I'm ok with my airbag light on over seat comfort lol

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My SEL is a 2015....have to figure out how to change my info tab.

hitman1985 said:

Cc executive fronts. Never look back at the oem crap.

I'm ok with my airbag light on over seat comfort lol

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Click to expand...

where do you find CC executive fronts? Are these full seats or covers or??
How comfortable are they?
Thanks,
Ed

Those are full seats. They sit several inches lower than the NMS seats. We had a set in our '12.

I found the alcantara material of the SEL seats more comfortable. The CC seats are more adjustable though. 4 way on the lumbar, 8 ways on the seat (the front is also height adjustable).

We have a 2013 and a 2015 SEL, and I find that I can do 12 hours a day for multiple days with zero discomfort, so I guess it's more of a "butt to seat interface" think and not the seats themselves . . . Same for my wife.


Sorry . . .

Myself as tdawson says, twice a year I drive about 6,000 km - 4,000 miles in five days and experience no discomfort either.

I have a 2015 Passat TDI SEL and love the seats.... the "old" 2017 Passat SE TSI, now those seats sucked!

I have a MB E class...much more comfortable for long trips. F150...much better too.
Wife complains about her Passat SEL after two hours and we drive 6 hours each weekend so need to find a solution or a different car/SUV.

^ Try the foam pad solution in post 3 or some variation of that.
In my Lexus LS430 (2005, 125 K miles) I actually took the seat out of the car and removed the seat leather and put a new pad in it (OEM). For your Passat, you might consider removing the seat and adding foam to the existing foam or re-padding the seat, OEM or otherwise. Probably less expensive than putting in seats from an entirely different vehicle like hitman did in post 4.

If your Passat has a lot of miles on it the seat pad may have degraded and is worse than a new one, so it may be time to upgrade or rebuild it to better than new.

I don't mind the seats either. I had a Toyota Avalon before my passat SEL. Talk about ****ty seat comfort. Why are you trying to compare MB seats to a VW?

I think he's trying to get his VW seat more comfortable, like the one in his MB. We're trying to help him out with ideas on how to achieve that.

Those that say "my seat is just fine" really are not helping that much IMHO.

I think he's trying to get his VW seat more comfortable, like the one in his MB. We're trying to help him out with ideas on how to achieve that.

Those that say "my seat is just fine" really are not helping that much IMHO.