I got my hands on a scrapyard driver's seat from a UK Prius, same as mine just mirrored. I'd like my wife to enjoy the benefits of manual height adjustment and lumbar support (her back hurts often on long trips), so I've asked a mechanic to: - take the original, great condition LHD passenger seat apart, leather covers, cushions, airbag, heating, sensors, safety belt att. etc - take scrapyard, super dirty RHD seat apart, remove rust and dirt, use seat bottom frame with the height adjuster+plastic bottom side cover panel + adjuster handles + the lumbar support mechanism from it, throw away the rest. - add these parts to original seat, keeping as many of the original LHD parts as possible. Now, the bottom rails of the RHD seat look REALLY dusty but I'm told it's only superficial rust...can this become a safety problem? Forward - backward adjusment works fine so it's not like it's stuck from rust. Is it easy enough to feed power to the motorised lumbar support somehow? Am I going to run into problems with the detection sensor, the airbag or anything else? Are there any potential red flags I should be aware of? Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
Aren't there side air bags in the seat? This seems like a lot of work that could be a problem as RHD and LHD might not be swappable... Can't you find an aftermarket product that goes on top of the seat to make it more comfortable instead?
I think it shouldn't be a problem from what I can tell looking at the diagrams. Both seats have the same airbag position, connectors and sensors if I'm not mistaken. I'm attaching the diagrams I found. The original RHD right side seat: The LHD right side seat:
I don't think height adjustment of that level is feasible with any add-ons. Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
If the cars in your area are equipped with the occupant classification ECU, the passenger seat bottom structure should have four strain-gauge sensors, near the four mounting corners. It might or might not be straightforward to move those to a driver's seat. If they can be moved there, a calibration procedure exists for the occupant classification system whenever the seat has been disturbed. It would be interesting to learn whether it can be satisfactorily calibrated after an operation like this. If it can be, the next interesting question could be: does it stay in calibration across the range of adjustable height?
Thank you! That's exactly the kind of crazy leftfield thing I never would have thought of...now I need to look into this. What's the role of the occupant classification ECU - is it the thing that determines whether the seatbelt sign needs to switch on for the passenger? Does it arm the airbag? Anyway it sounds important and a pain to recalibrate. I'll definitely look into it. Kristof Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
So here's the first picture from the shop - looking promising! I'll have to see it in person to report in more detail. RHD driver's seat used to upgrade LHD passenger seat by KrisDeak posted Apr 6, 2021 at 6:39 AM
