Starlet Uncomfortable?

[ashley karyl]

A few months back I bought an automatic Toyota Starlet mainly for my car shy wife but we both use it every day. Its a well built little car and seems to have bullet proof reliability but its one great downfall in my opinion are the incredibly uncomfortable seats. Around town its no problem at all but anything more than 50 miles and I start to get neck ache and never feel completely comfortable behind the wheel. The seats themselves are hard but totally lacking in support. The contrast to my previous Carina couldn't be greater which I had used occasionally to drive 700+ miles in a day without the slightest ache or pain.

Is anybody else finding the Starlet uncomfortable like this or found a solution? I noted that the previous owner had fitted some of those seat covers made up of large wooden beads since he claimed to suffer from a bad back and only later did I start to see the significance. They helped a little but I found them slippery and threw them out only to discover on the next trip just how bad the seats are. I know that cars like the new Yaris have amazingly good seats but surely Toyota could have done better than this with the Starlet.

[Boro Sera]

They aren't just old, tired seats are they?

Previous owner the size of a whale??

It's not a massive job to fit new seats into a car - usually the most you have to do is to modify the seat subframe with a bit of welding and basic fabrication.

[ashley karyl]

Its had a couple of previous owners, so I can't be 100% sure what they were like but the last owner was a stick insect and I am only 10 stone myself. Its the same story on both front seats and the back seats are just as hard as well. The car has only done 47,000 and feels like it has always been well looked after with a full Toyota service history. I have no idea how much a new set of seats would cost but I suppose its something I could look into. In other respects its a good car but because of this problem I was thinking of selling it and getting a Corolla instead.