Better seat suggestions for the truck

I've been thinking about replacing the uncomfortable seats in my '04 Ram CTD with something better but I'm still trying to figure out with what.

The truck is used for winter driving, towing, and general parts chasing. The truck has the cloth seats, nothing special. I had to remove the factory lumbar support because even set at the lowest setting it was like driving with a baseball bat behind you. With it removed it's better, but not great.

I'd love a pair of heated leather Recaros, but that's just not in the budget. The 300M seats I put in my Intrepid are just about perfect, but the seat rails are integrated into the seat and would be more difficult to adapt to the Ram. Not impossible, but not my first choice.

I can get some Corbeau GTS II's at a pretty good price locally, but I haven't sat in them yet. Anybody have experience with them?

So what are some suggestions? Aftermarket or OEM. My wife & I are aiming to go to the Challenge this year, and I don't want to have to find a chiropractor after a 14+ hour drive in the Ram.

Thanks, Rob

mastercraft?

Just a thought but since your aplication is a truck, maybe the semi truck seat manufacturers have something that may fit your needs. True, this may be expensive (new) but after some research you might find what aplications the used market brings.

Sample:
http://www.bostromseating.com/products.htm

As far a Dodge stuff goes, do you currently have the best seat that Dodge offered? I am not sure of the Dodge world but for Ford the King Ranch is the highest version. Is there a Dodge equivilent? Could you get used seats out of one of those?

If fabricating, Volvo makes some really comfy seats and even the manual versions have a lot of adjustments to them.

http://katzkin.com ?

Rob_Mopar wrote: ...I'd love a pair of heated leather Recaros, but that's just not in the budget. ...

Some Saab seats are heated if you can find them. You might hav eluck in the junkyard. You actually sit pretty upright, and they are fairly durable.

Thanks guys.

Katzkin does make skins for the seats, but the overall design of the seat itself isn't that comfortable. I wasn't aware of Mastercraft. I'm guessing the Corbeau Baja RS is a knockoff of their Baja RS? I haven't driven anything with a suspension seat yet. What's that feel like compared to a traditional spring and foam seat?

The seats in my Ram are probably one step above the contractor/work truck seat. They did offer leather in higher trim packages, and really nice seats in the SRT10 version of the Ram. A buddy had one of those, and the SRT seats were pretty nice. Anybody know a Viper/Viper Ram dismantler?

The last Volvo I drove was back in '89. It was a girlfriend's mother's new car. We drove it to look at a college in MD. Her parents didn't trust my 11 year old Malibu. But at least it had comfortable buckets. In the Volvo my back was killing me by the time we got home so I never gave them another thought.

I probably could do the Recaros for the price of those professional trucker seats, but I'm trying to keep the price down some.

-Rob

Try some Volvo 850 or S/V 70 seats. They're some of the best long distance seats I've ever sat in. They're heavy, but that won't matter in a truck.

I had a Ramcharger that I put seats from a Dodge Daytona Shelby into. The drivers seat had adjustable lumbar and was really comfortable. It was possible to make the seat fit like a glove and I did a lot of long distance towing with no discomfort.

Don49 wrote: I had a Ramcharger that I put seats from a Dodge Daytona Shelby into. The drivers seat had adjustable lumbar and was really comfortable. It was possible to make the seat fit like a glove and I did a lot of long distance towing with no discomfort.

I've been toying with using either some L-body seats or some Daytona seats. I have a '85 Shelby Z parts car in the back yard now, but those seats might be needed for the Challenge vehicle. Maybe when the snow here melts I'll go take a closer look at them.

-Rob

Rob_Mopar wrote: Anybody know a Viper/Viper Ram dismantler?

I went to www.car-parts.com and tried to find a RT10 motor. That lead me to http://www.xvipersinc.com/
I figure if they have a motor it may be worth to call them about interior bits.

You might try a few more searches on www.car-parts.com

My number one suggestion would be the best Dodge factory seat you can find.

. . On the Volvo topic, yes, I too was commenting on Volvo 850, S70 and V70 seats (years 1993 to current.) This also was my comment that the manual versions of these seats offer multi adjustment as well. The manual controls may keep you from having to deal with wiring. When it comes to Volvo seats, I really feel the tan leather is inferior to the black/grey leather so i recommend avoiding the tan.

I have a set of premium package grey leather seats (heated, full power including power lumbar) from my old E46 328i in the basement gathering dust waiting for me to turn them into desk chairs. Very comfy, probably not as nice as the Volvo seats mentioned above (I also owned a V70 for 3 years and have an XC90 now) and definitely not as nice as the M3 seats I replaced them with, but again, very comfy. Make me an offer

I have a buddy who is also a mopar nut. A while back he was fixing up a mid seventies power wagon that he saved from the junk yard. The truck was mechanicly in good shape but the interior was destroyed by an animal infestation. My friend found this to be no deterent to his project at all, he just stripped the interior out of a mid seventies new yorker broughm that was purchased for parts on annother project, and managed to install nearly all of it into the power wagon making it probably the only power wagon broughm in existance. Don't under estamate the need for a comfy leather couch when plowing through muddy PA back country roads

He also painted it case tractor orange with paint purchased from the local farm supply store for some thing like $25, and it came out great, except for the fact that it fadded to pink after a few years

I know this doesn't help with the bad seats in the ram, but how could I read a thread about replacing dodge truck seats and not tell this story.

Several of my Dakota buddies swapped Tiburon or Civic seats into their trucks, dunno if the ram rails are the same or not. Some of them also like the leather sets out of the Durango.

I will second the comfort of Volvo seats - and many are heated. They tend to wear quickly, though.

If you don't care at all about looks - get big plush seats from a conversion van. I had some, but they were too ugly to install - some have heat, some swivel, some rock, and they are are seriously lazy boy comfy. Upside is they are really cheap. Mine were free.

Andy, I'm picturing a salmon colored late '70's Power Wagon with a giant green leather overstuffed NYB power bench in it. I imagine that would be pretty comfy and hideous at the same time.

JRW, I'll give XVipers, Inc a shout. Didn't find any SRT10 Ram seats on Car-Part.com, but they might just not be getting put in the computer inventory either. Not much is showing up on ebay this week either. I guess nobody wants to deal with an auction ending on Christmas. Oh, and thanks for the tip on the Volvo seats. I'd be avoiding the tan anyway since the truck is grey with a dark grey interior. Black or grey seats are what I'm looking for.

I'm still curious about the Corbeau GTS II or Baja RS seats. Does anybody have any real world experience with them? Are they good quality seats, or are they closer to the spray foam and burlap seats from Pep Boys?

A quick search on www.craiglook.com brings up this aftermarket seat for $375
http://cnj.craigslist.org/pts/1513460389.html
Not sure how comfortable but priced right and in your area.

I thought about this too - my Tundra front seats are cloth bench and getting a little worn after 10yrs. I was thinking that it should be pretty easy to find nice heated buckets from any luxo barge at the junkyard. Everything from an Escalade, BMW, Maxima or Camry has heated leather seats so its just a matter of locating a set that are cheap and in decent shape.

I might prefer to find manual seats though as there are no existing power seat controls in the truck to map to - so if they aren't integrated into the seat bottom I'd have work to do.

Dunno bout the Ram. but in every truck I've owned, it was easy to find a junkyard example that had buckets, and just grab the brackets/rails to mount them. Then find the seat of your choice and adapt the brackets/rails to said seat, my personal seat of choice, are 300Z seats, I've got a set from an 84 I totalled years ago, they've been installed in 2 other trucks already, and I'm currently hunting for bucket seat brackets for a 88 S-10 so I can mount them up in the current beater/parts runner.

Oh yeah, if you need a chiropractor when you get here lemme know. Mine is great.