I'd like to get one of those seat cushions that are held in place by a strap around the upper part of the seat, and by two straps that are fed through the slot between the seat and back. Does this type of cushion compromise the operation of the seat airbag? I can't see that the two straps running under the seat would be an issue, but the strap running around the upper part of the seat back might be. Thoughts?
The seat air bag deploys thru the outer edge of the seat back where the stitching is designed to break away. I would think that it would compromise the deployment of the side air bag if it deflects the air bag from the intended path. Here's a photo I grabbed from the Toyota web site showing the air bag deployed. I added the red outline around the bag: [attachmentid=10099]
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dogfriend @ Jul 25 2007, 02:00 PM) [snapback]484561[/snapback]</div> Thank you. Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks for the great photo, too. I think there may be a lot of drivers out there with slip on seat covers who are losing some airbag protection.
Before I bought my Prius, I was considering a base model with the cloth seats. My GF was against the cloth seats because she thought that they wouldn't hold up well with our two dogs. I was thinking about using seat covers, but thought that it probably wasn't a good idea with the side air bags. I know now that some companies do offer seat covers that are supposed to be compatible with the side air bags, but I'm skeptical that they have done any testing to see how they really work. I ended up with the factory leather seats. No complaints, except I would really like to be able to lower the seat for visibility reasons.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dogfriend @ Jul 25 2007, 12:20 PM) [snapback]484865[/snapback]</div> If you look at Wet Okole's website you can see that they did testing.
