Car seat technology has come a long way in recent decades. Power seats now dominate the market, and you can get all kinds of heating, ventilation, and massage if you’ve got the money. Headrests, though? They’re lagging behind, according to a new study from J.D. Power.
When it comes to car seats, most of us like to set them and forget them. It can be frustrating to find your perfect spot time and again, particularly if you’ve got an older vehicle with manual adjustments. Especially so if you find that someone’s moved the headrest. It’s not uncommon to have to fight with some weird, arcane locking mechanism to get the thing where you want it. That is if the headrest even has the adjustments you’re after.
Indeed, that’s what JD Power found in its 2024 U.S. Seat Quality and Satisfaction Study. Like me, you’ve probably been waiting for the results with bated breath. Let’s see what the survey has to say!
Where’s Your Head At?
The scale of the 2024 study is quite something. J.D. Power surveyed 99,144 purchasers and lessees of new model vehicles. The survey was done after 90 days of ownership in order to get a good idea of how drivers were finding the seats in their new vehicles. Remember that old Top Gear joke about a German panel of seat experts? It seems America has its very own.
The headline outcome of the study? It’s headrests that are annoying people the most. In fact, it’s the fifth consecutive year that J.D. Power has found this outcome. The study aims to quantify seat quality by measuring how many problems owners had with their seats. Lower scores are better. Owners who are happy with their headrests only report one seat problem per 100 vehicles, suggesting other seat problems are rare. Among owners who do have a problem with their headrests, they report 6.7 problems per 100 vehicles.
The press release from J.D. Power isn’t particularly specific as to what about headrests is annoying people, but it seems positioning and adjustability are at the heart of the matter. “Headrest adjustability needs to be prioritized by seat manufacturers as it does have an effect on overall seat experience,” said Ashley Edgar, senior director of automotive benchmarking at J.D. Power. “As much as manufacturers can address many of the other aspects of seat quality, overall comfort is lost without a proper headrest.”
Winners And Losers
Beyond headrests, J.D. Power also provided rankings on the most satisfactory seats out there. Kia did particularly well, with the Kia Forte and Kia K5 taking the honors in the Mass Market Small/Compact and Mass Market Midsize/Large Car categories. They scored well with 6.5 and 5.5 problems per 100 vehicles, respectively.
As for SUVs, the Subaru Forester took victory in the small/compact segment, while the Chevrolet Traverse had the least frustrating seats in the midsize/large category. The Ram 1500 handily beat out the Chevrolet Silverado in the truck/van group, with an impressively low score of just 4.1 problems per 100 vehicles.
As you might expect, premium brands did well on seat comfort. The Audi A5 took out the premium car gong, with just 3.8 problems per 100 vehicles. Meanwhile, the Porsche Cayenne scored 4.0 to win the Premium SUV category.
Notably, J.D. Power also calls out the seat suppliers directly by name, not just the major OEMs. Lear Corporation, Forvia, and Adient all did particularly well in the rankings. If you’re working in an automaker’s interior design department, and you have no idea what you’re going to do for your next set of seats? Maybe use these insights to make the right phone calls. One of these companies will surely be happy to whip up some chairs for you.
What’s To Be Done?
Without deeper insight into the study’s raw data, it’s difficult to know exactly what is annoying the average consumer when it comes to automotive headrests. Certainly, it can be difficult to adjust them up and down in many models, particularly if they have a poorly-located locking tab. Tilt adjustment can also be frustratingly absent in some cases. Beyond that, though, it’s hard to know what’s really bothering people out there.
I’ve had my own problems in this regard. My Audi TT lacks adjustable headrests in stock form unless you get out a set of pliers to make things happen. I’d certainly have reported that on a survey, but I bought my car when it was almost 25 years old.
In any case, perhaps you’ve got opinions on the matter, too. Tell us what’s bothering you about your headrests, and maybe we can all understand what needs to be done to solve this scurrilous problem.
Image credits: J.D. Power, GM, Ford, Lewin Day
Can we talk about the rear seat headrests? The ones that block 2/3rds of your view out the rear window? I end up pulling these all the way out (where possible) and throwing them in the rear footwell. Passengers back there are responsible for re-installing them as needed.
Also, I’m pretty sure there was some kind of US regulation that hit around 2004(?) that resulted in a bunch of tilted-forward, unadjustable, really annoying headrests.
My wife’s Volvo XC40 has horrible headrests. I can’t believe I can say this but it is the one feature I hate the most about that thing.
They only move up and down but the design is this weird bulge/curve design that sorta looks like it has a lumbar support for your neck. I’m fairly tall and my head hits it low in that area where the “lumbar” sticks out.
I always feel like the headrest is pushing my head forward and I get a stiff neck every time.
How is a company so focused on ergonomics allowing this?
https://www.carwale.com/volvo-cars/xc40/images/xc40-front-seat-headrest-435365/
Yep, my wife hated my old V60 Cross Country for several ergonomic reasons, including this one. (The main other one was that it felt like a cave to her she couldn’t see out of properly, which seems odd for a safety-forward brand).
Interesting, I’ve always found Volvo seats to be the absolute best.
Seats? Yes. Headrest? Abomination.
What’s hard to understand is they have good ones but choose to use these horrible versions in some models.
I mostly am responding to say, I love the username. Nice.
We ditched head restraints integrated into the front seat backs forty years ago for a reason – they’re not adjustable, restrict vision rearwards, and make rear seat passengers feel like they’re in a diving chamber. So no, ‘sportiness’ is not an acceptable reason to bring them back.
Hot take: the safest position for the headrest may be uncomfortable but that’s a small price to pay compared to the whiplash potential. Get to used to it, I say. I will never buy another car that doesn’t have headrests I can adjust to what I consider a safe position for me neck. That means I need to sit in the car and adjust it around to make sure. If that means I have to pass on a purchase, so be it.
Of course, if this was some classic car that was already a deathtrap, we can ignore that headrest issue.
This is a terrible philosophy though, from a design perspective. If something is uncomfortable, people will do many silly things to alleviate it, including bypassing all your carefully design headrest positioning. A great deal of work has gone into making seat belts comfortable enough that most people really don’t care that they put them on in the car, and a great many lives have been saved as a result. The same care should be taken with headrests, but there are definitely some makers (Volvo is one of the worst offenders IMHO) who still have terribly uncomfortable headrests that will never be used in their optimally safe position as a result.
Fair! That’s why the car makers should care, for sure. I suppose I just meant from my perspective I was willing to put up with a small amount of discomfort for safety’s sake.
If you’re such a safety enthusiast, you might as well wear a crash helmet, too.
When I’ve complained to salesmen about over-aggressive headrest angles, I received these horrible bits of advice: turn the headrest around backwards, or just remove them.
I’ve still gotten whiplash, anyway.
I know it was for safety but the most annoying headrests I’ve experienced were the ones that are angled maybe 35 degrees forward on Xterras and Frontiers of the era. I couldn’t relax without my head being forced down a little.
I haven’t had complaints in anything else I’ve driven. My Sorento was unique in that the headrests could be adjusted forward and back too a bit which was neat but didn’t make much difference to me. Would have rather they put an immobilizer in than that feature.
My biggest problem with most Subarus is the headrest can’t go back far enough for my neck to be in a comfortable position. To the credit of the fixed-head-position seats in my 996: they’re comfy! I have to pull out my ponytail, but whatever: I can also put it up in a high bun if I want the windows down and don’t want my hair whipping my eyeballs.
This might be a pretty niche head restraint-related pet peeve, but I now have an opening: it drives me up the wall when I see manufacturers go from having adjustable rear head restraints to fixed, non-adjustable cushiony blobs (looking at you, Honda). Surely has to be a cost cutting mechanism, but it looks cheap and also impacts comfort. Bonus points for annoyance when the model has adjustable head restraints in markets outside the US.
Is this why I often see small female drivers with the head rests ALL the way up? Like above their heads to the point where it might actually do them harm if they got into an accident. I understand that if you wear your hair back in a ponytail or bun that the head rest would force your head forward and create a very uncomfortable seating position.
I think it depends on the seat and the vehicle. Some seat headrests seem to be designed so they are effective when the seat is tilted back a bit. My wife is not a tall person and has her seat almost vertical so she can see. In our Nissan, this has the headrest leaning forward to the point where it’s uncomfortable for her. She has her headrest turned backward to counter that. In some cars, the headrest tilt is adjustable and she doesn’t have the problem. I can see why some smaller people would raise the headrest.
I can almost guarantee that few, if any, women were consulted on headrest design.
A not-insignificant portion of why I picked a Prius v over a regular Prius was because of the headrest…the regular Prius headrest is a rock while the Prius v’s has just a modicum of “padding” to it. Sometimes I rest my head against it, sometimes not.
But by design, they should serve for both comfort and safety simultaneously.
Of course, my old ’97 conversion van had cloth seats that went up past my head and I could rest against them all the time. I’ll forever wish for similar plush seats, but I know they’re not likely.
When it comes to headrests, I pretty much just put them in the lowest position possible and forget about it. If I stretch on a long trip and they push up, I put them back down.
When it comes to full seat adjustability, I really appreciate being able to save your position and push a button to get back to it. I drive my wife’s car whenever we go out together and I have about a foot of height on her. A push of a button and the seat and mirrors go to where I set them. Much more convenient than having to manually do it. Though I hate how slow pretty much all seats are to adjust.
I actually appreciate how slow they are for a different reason. As a similarly tall person with a short partner, on occasion the car gets confused by who unlocked it and decides to swap drivers right as I get in. The slow seat movement is the only thing that keeps me from being crushed to death before I can push the button to halt it and reset lol.
I can certainly appreciate that haha. I have seen that trend on IG where you set the seat as far forward and crush your spouse.
Luckily for me, our cars have a button you have to push to get to the presets versus it being programmed to the key fob.
I can vouch for the headrest on the Subaru Forester. But the car needs some added bolsters for my personal seating comfort, it’s clearly made for someone with far more ‘girth’ than me.
But, with ever-expanding waistlines and the wide range of bodyshapes of people, I don’t see manufacturers ever wanting to have mass-market vehicles with nice tight bolstered seats that cradle you.
You bought the wrong Subaru, then. BRZ seats are made for female runway models. I’m 5’11”, 175 and had to cut half the bottom bolster seat foam out and the unnecessary steel loops reinforcing them and that still wasn’t quite right, so I sliced horizontal V cuts on the outsides of the remaining cushion so they’d fold out of the way easily, but still maintain the shape under the upholstery for the sake of appearances. Focus ST was as bad, though without steel loops, and also had a weird angle I had to fix with 1″ of extra upholstery padding toward the rear.
I’m a fair bit taller than you, but I found the BRZ seats to be very comfortable in the showroom. But I had to ram them into the rear seats to get legroom – it was crossed off my list due to the lack of functional rear seats.
I never understood the importance of tall seat bottom bolstering. I never bounce out of my seat, though I do have a few extra pounds. Maybe if I was a jockey-slim race driver on an off-road course, yes, but I’d also be belted in better. As for seatback bolstering, though, I’ve always wished for a little bit more.
It’s odd and annoying. I’m the biggest I’ve been in my life (with a 31″ waist) and have never had issues of sliding out of seats even when I have always considered getting 1/2 of my tread life out of my tires to be a win thanks almost entirely to excessive slip angles and not until the last 8 years have I had cars with big bottom bolsters. OK, the GR86 can pull over a g on HPAS tires, but why do they put them in cars that have nowhere near that capability intended to be sold to people who wouldn’t approach 2/3 the limits, anyway? I’m under the size of the average US male, so how are these seats not being complained about more? Maybe I’m just a complainer (I am), but like John Lennon sang, I’m not the only one. To top off the lack of necessity of bottom bolsters, car cockpits are pretty cramped with fallout bunker doors and Hummer H1 center consoles and I can barely get my knee at an angle to the side in many of them (unlike old cars), so where would I even be sliding to? My other complaint is the stiffness of the seat bottoms that make long drives suck. In general, I have few complaints about the backs. The ’86 came without lumbar, but a pair of $15 blood pressure cuffs behind the springs fixed that and they’re adjustable in an old school way, which fits the car.
I recently dipped my toes into modern cars (newer than me), and more recently still luxury cars. A few months ago, I sold a 2008 BMW with the 20-way adjustable seats, and initially thought that seemed absurd (I still can’t come up with 20 ways to adjust a seat). Once I got the seats dialed in and they were stored with my key fob, I understood the attraction. They were very nice, very comfortable seats. The best feature was the bolsters that I could adjust all the way up to keep me centered that would automatically retract for getting in and out of the car without messing up the upholstery by dragging my butt over the high bolsters. I live in the canyons above Denver, and high bolsters are a very nice thing to have with that many curves and corners. They were actuated with electric motors. I replaced it with a 2011 E550, and it has its own fancy seats. These pop the bolsters up pneumatically based on steering wheel input, are heated and ventilated, AND have a massage feature! Wild! I almost didn’t buy the car, because the seats seemed so unbelievably complicated (the active seat bolster thing just gives me the heebie jeebies), but they can be turned off. Maybe I’m being paranoid though; after all, an air valve is much simpler than an electric motor… Besides, I just adjust the seat bolsters up or down, stored them as a seat position in memory, and then swap between them as conditions warrant.
I can understand the need for adjustability because some car seats cause my legs to go to sleep. It’s the reason I never bought a Focus ST.
That’s actually the reason for the massage function on the Merc’s seats. As for reasons to avoid buying a Focus ST… Whatever gets you to the right decision. Isn’t that the one that ate transmissions on a timeframe measured in months that Ford decided to let owners eat after 100K miles rather than fix the problem?
No, it was the one that only came with a manual that everyone wanted in 2016. You’re either referring to the Focus RS with the wrong head gaskets or the cars that came with their crappy dct.
Didn’t it have the differentials at slightly different gear ratios for “drift” something something that really just unnecessarily wore the differential clutches?
That was the Focus RS.
I remember sociopathic transmission engineering and support. I remember mismatched differential ratios. I remember my own Ford Focus, which was so unbelievably unreliable that I swore to replace it with a car that was infinitely reliable (does not exist) or infinitely repairable (thus began my car hobby with a series of air cooled VWs). I did not remember that there was both an RS and an ST version.
To me they stand out from the sea of SUVs and crossovers that I have zero interest in. There are a lot less cars to like these days.
The DCTs were junk, but the manuals were very reliable. I put over 200k on my ’12 SE and it would have shamed a Corolla with how reliable it was (and got better mileage, handled better, was quicker, and better to drive). Replaced it because it got totaled, but had still felt and looked like it had about 1/4 the mileage.
The first gen Focus was very reliable, as were the second gen. Why Ford allowed their reputation to be so tarnished over a stupid DCT is beyond me. And to never even replace it on the latest models either, just keep using it for years after it was notoriously faulty, mind boggling.
Mine (’01) was the least reliable car I’ve ever owned, and I currently have a 13 year old German luxury car, a rotary, and a Chrysler product sitting in my driveway… I bought it for about $5K in ’05, and proceeded to pay for it an entire second time in repairs over the following 3 years. I paid for three failed fuel pumps before the recall was issued and Ford finally fixed their mistake, for instance, and other such things. A plastic coolant crossover tube ruptured at the seam and sprayed coolant everywhere a time or two. Stupid things like that where even a modicum of giving a shit would have saved a poor college student having to work 3 jobs while going to school full time. That was all BEFORE all the crap they’re going through now. I have no brand allegiances, but Ford is the one I’ll never touch again.
I had to chop 1/2 the foam out of the ass bolsters and add 1″ of upholstery padding to level the seat bottom so I didn’t feel like I was getting blood clots in my legs on long journeys in mine.
As an aside it always amused me that the sweet spot for comfort in a 5 series sports seat was about 6 inches of waistline wider than for a 3 series. I went from an E61 with part-electric sports seats to one with fully adjustable comfort seats and hated them – I just couldn’t find the right position. But about a month in I got the tweaks right and those are the most comfortable seats I’ve ever driven on. And electrically adjustable head restraints to get back on topic.
I think the seats that introduced me to well done seats were in an ’86 RX-7. I don’t remember what about them I liked so much, I only owned that car for 3 months, and that was the car that introduced me to the glory that is the rotary engine and thus is probably colored a bit. Pretty sure they had fixed headrests. This was also the newest car I had owned in more than a decade of 50s/60s weirdness and trucks, so filter accordingly.
I don’t think I’ve ever adjusted a headrest or even given it a second thought. If I try really hard to come up with something, though, I don’t like how backseat headrests block visibility and get in the way when you fold down the seat
I liked how they were in my mother’s XC60, with the push of a button on the dash they’d tumble forward like a kid falling asleep in class and hang limp on a hinge. Great for bonking annoying rear seat passengers such as myself.
Me too. It’s one of the reasons I thought about the backseat headrests. I have a V60 and my dad has an XC60.
Also my 2 previous Volvo station wagons didn’t have that button so the headrests were always in the way when I needed to fold down the seat. You actually had to remove them back then.
When I got my 2010 Fusion a long time ago, I realized that headrests had actually morphed into something akin to head restraints. The modern headrest seems to slant slightly forward. I assume this is to brace your neck in the event of a rear end collision. You don’t actually rest your head on them anymore, because it’s kind of uncomfortable. This was driven home after I passed that car along to my kids and drove an inherited 2000 infiniti for a while – I forgot how comfortable headrests used to be. Admittedly, they wouldn’t have offered the same degree of protection, but…
I think this is the actual answer – safety.
I’ve thought about this, but don’t get why only the driver gets that?
In my Prius v, everyone but the driver gets vertical headrests. But the driver’s has that slight diagonal to it.
I am still surprised that headrests were mandatory in cars in 1968 but not in trucks until 1991.
The only headrest issue I have is they are too big in my Jeep Wrangler back seat and take up too much cargo space when the back seats are folded.
Look at new Chevy Express passenger vans or 2014 (last year of regular van body) Ford E-series passenger vans. Still no headrests for rear passengers. I can’t believe it.
THE REAR WINDOW IS YOUR HEADREST IN A PICKUP. QUIT WHINING, LIBERAL
/s
My neighbor had to try several child seats in her Volvo to find one that worked, due to the headrest position. I know, as I spent about an hour helping her wrestle one in there.
Haven’t looked at headrests the same since.
Take the headrests out, spray some silicone spray lubricant on the posts, wipe off excess (or spray on a rag and wipe posts down) and re-insert headrests. Repeat every few years (or not) as needed. Works wonders getting them to move up/down and lasts a surprisingly long time.
OK, time to pour some cold water. They’re head restraints, not head rests. They are there so that if your car gets slammed, your head doesn’t bend back over the seat and snap your neck like a twig.
Does anybody really drive around with their head resting against one of these things? Seriously?
Came here for this. Thank you.
What? My old conversion van had plush cloth seats that went up past my head and I absolutely drove with head resting against it. They can serve both purposes.
I’ll forever be pining for similar seats, but alas.
Exactly. I’m of the mind that a (front) headrest should be just forward enough to prevent a neck injury in a rear-end impact. No more, no less.
Even the most luxurious cars of pre-FMVSS days lack headrests entirely, they’re at their best when made as unobtrusive as possible.
You don’t want comfort?I think having a soft surface behind my head (touching it) is comforting.
While driving, I find it more comfortable to have more range of motion – the ability to stretch my neck in all directions and perform a shoulder-check without brushing against the headrest does more to prevent neck fatigue than the ability to rest my head on it.
After sleeping on my neck wrong one night a while back and a painful drive to an urgent care to get muscle relaxers, I’ve added convex blind spot mirrors to my side mirrors so I don’t have to turn my head at all.
Yikes! So you can’t do a head-check?
Yikes!
I can, but I’m wary of spraining my neck by moving too fast.
It’s the competing incentives of “moving too fast can sprain” but also “need to return attention to the road in front as fast as humanly possible.” They’re just not compatible.
If I turn my eyes to the left, I can see everything past the B-pillar. Multiple observations have confirmed for me that the mirrors cover absolutely everything behind that.
I also have an extended-width rear-view mirror that even lets me see out the rear side windows again.
And even if I have enough cargo to block the center rear-view mirror straight out the back, my aftermarket Android Auto head unit lets me put the backup camera on anytime, and it has a wide field of view.
The only car I drove that I could feel the headrest but it was a huge headrest, it was the Cadillac Lyriq, but it felt so nice and so soft, it was the first time I actually say wow I just want to spend the whole day seating here.
+1, for any normal driving who the heck is actually “resting” their head on these things? Like maybe if I’m on a long road trim and just want to switch up positions and relax my neck for a minute, but generally I would say my head is rested on the headrest for 0.1% of driving.
It’s absolutely clutch for napping while your Tesla autopilots you to your destination, no?
Have you never had to pull over to take a nap on the side of the road, or at a rest stop?
Why bother stopping? What a waste of time.
/s
I often have my head up against the head rest. While spending a fair amount of time in PT getting my posture un-pretzeled from years and years of bad habits my therapist pointed out that my head should be touching the head rest if I am holding it in the right position. Many to most people carry their head too far forward from years of working on computers and looking down at our phones. If you can’t find a comfortable position for your head rest you may be one of them.
In order for me to rest my head against the restraint, the seatback angle would have to approach dead plumb. I don’t think I could do that.
Everyone’s physiology is different, but for me the combo of the PT mentioned above and learning more about seat positioning at a performance driving school has led to my seating position being much more upright than it was before. It felt a bit weird at first but I got used to it pretty quickly. Now if the headrest isn’t in easy reach I’m probably not in the right position for me.
Oh you’re right, on a track you want to “get up on the wheel”. But I don’t drive on a track, I drive on boring suburban roads and the last thing I need to do is be more aggressive. I prefer to lay back like Hedonism Bot so that I can see out of the rear windows.
This is spot on, it should be called a restraint, not a headrest. The wife had a client years ago who did computer simulations on head restraints in crashes, and found that the restraint needed to be slightly above the head, if it was lower it could result in neck snapping/decapitation in the simulation. Which is a problem for me at 6’5″, as many car headrests/restraints, even if adjustable, hit me in the shoulders/neck, which is not just uncomfortable, but could turn a rear-end accident from relatively minor to fatal. Same thing on airplanes, the top of the seat is generally at the base of my neck, so is in a prime position to snap my neck if anything happens.
Our current cars have the ability to adjust up and down, along with forward and back. When I discovered the forward and back, I was pretty excited.
I don’t often actually rest my head on the headrest, so I guess this isn’t the sort of thing that would bother me much.
Edit: Rethinking, I’m 5’10”, so I don’t deal with some of the ergonomic issues others do. I would imagine lack of adjustability impacts shorter/taller people.
It’s that lack of adjustability with the tilt angle that pisses everyone off. Go read any Toyota Camry forum and there will be multiple entries about the headrests pushing your head forward at an uncomfortable angle. It seem especially bothersome for shorter people.
It does! It’s like they want you looking down at your lap while driving. If the headrest is adjustable I have sometimes just taken it out. I’m 5’4 1/2″ (yes the half matters), so maybe that’s the problem.
Yes, I wish more cars had tilt angle adjustable headrests.
It took me way too long to realize the adjustability my headrests offer. All it took was pressing the button and moving any direction other than up/down, but I never did it.
Also, why does every picture of Lewin’s car have the Mexico filter?
Maybe the way I drive is too vertical that I don’t even feel the headrest but I had the idea headrest were more to protect your neck in case of an accident, or people recline the back of their seats like a lazy boy sofa and think the headrest needs to feel like a pillow?
To me is more important the lower back support and the material feel (Looking at you vegan leather that sticks to your body like velcro ugh)
I’m right there with you. My head almost never touches the headrest.
Yeah, I think the biggest part of this is that the headrest is designed for safety and people want comfort. But I’m with you on not even noticing the headrest.
To me it’s more that the headrest seems to jut forward at the top. Just go straight up and down and leave me alone!
Also, can we agree that whoever invented the phrase “vegan leather” is the marketing genius of the millenium? So much cooler than “polyurethane” or “sticky plastic.”
I gave a ride one day to one of my coworkers, she loved the car (Polestar 2) and when I mentioned recycled materials and vegan leather she just…. (She is vegan lol).
…Go on…
Vegan leather is just the latest example of the long-term trend of making vinyl seem fancier by calling it something other than vinyl, see also Morrokide and MB-Tex
How can it be called vegan if it’s made from dinosaurs? #thinkofthebrontos
It’s right up there with “Luxury Vinyl Plank” flooring, which is actually plastic with a picture of woodgrain on top.
My head pretty much never touches the headrest while I’m driving, but I’ve encountered some headrests that came so far forward I didn’t have a choice. The headrest in a 2015 Nissan Altima I rented actually came so far forward that it forced my neck into an awkward angle. I put the headrest in the trunk and crossed my fingers to not get rear-ended.
Same.. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed headrests one way or the other in a car, at least as the driver. Maybe as a passenger it’s a different story, but if I’m reclining the seat to sleep, I’m using something as a pillow anyway.
The only time I think about my headrests is when a guest, parking valet or carwash attendant moves the seat(s) and the headrest automatically rises to some ridiculous height automatically.
But all I need do is push the headrest button (for the passenger seat) or the memory button for the driver’s seat, and all is well.
I’m convinced every Toyota SUV/Van has the worlds most uncomfortable headrests ever constructed.
It makes no sense, the cars are fine, but as soon as they jack up the ride height and add more seats, they get hard and stuck into the absolute worst angle ever.
My 25 year old Explorer has not only little stubs of height adjustable headrests for the back seats, but the headrests don’t reach anywhere near an adult’s head when fully extended. Then again, the front seats have integrated headrests that offer absolutely zero support and even less whiplash protection in the event of a rear-end collision. Modern headrests can be annoying when they jut forward too much, but they are a huge improvement over what cars used to offer.