Kia Optima Passenger seat too low and riser kit.

[thec...@gmail.com]

I put this review on the company web site. But they didn't post it. They only seem to post positive reviews.
Company: http://www.k5optimastore.com/
Product: Passenger Seat Riser Kit $79

I just installed this kit on my 2015 Kia Optima, Maybe everyone else here has a different year, but judging from comments all years have the low seat problem.

The problem with this installation kit, is that due to the angles of the bolts in the car floor, if you raise the seat tracks higher up on the new longer bolt shaft, you will notice that the holes in the track need to be further apart than they do when the tracks are sitting flat on the floor.
There is no easy way to install this kit without crossthreading the welded-in nuts under the floor of the car! (These nuts are a softer metal than the bolts and if they crossthread, it will result in a real difficult issue. so you definitely need to start all the bolts by hand only). (Note I used to be a mechanic for many years).
There was just no way to thread these bolts once the riser was in place.
To make this work for me, I removed all 4 hold-down bolts.
I put the rear spacer in and then started the rear bolts in loosely.
I then propped up the front of the seat and proceeded to elongated the holes in the front portion of the seat tracks about a quarter inch further forward.
I propped the front track portion up on a block of wood and used newspaper to catch the shavings. Using vise grips, I clamped a piece of sheet metal with holes already in it under the holes in the track and used a large drillbit to shape the hole further toward the front of the car until I could start the bolts by hand. (Torquing was a little strange, as you can feel the risers squish a bit.
But the end result was good. No way could I live with that low seat. What is Kia thinking and why dont they fix it?
Anyways,
My car is perfect now!

Thanks,
crzzy1

[thec...@gmail.com]

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Though I'd add some keywords here.
Kia Optima Passenger Seat.
How to install the Kia Optima Seat riser kit.
Kia Optima Seat riser kit review.
Kia Optima Passenger Seat too low

[edm...@gmail.com]

Thanks for posting this. I'm glad I saw your post before investing in any of these riser kits. I'm not so mechanically inclined so your description of what you had to do to make it work tells me that this would be beyond my meager capabilities.

Figures the company wouldn't include a critical review of their product, and it tells me they're more interested in marketing a possibly inferior, defective product than acknowledging and addressing the problem. Fear of recall perhaps? Doesn't exactly engender trust in them or their product. Anyway I'm concerned about compromising the safety of the seat so will steer clear of this approach in either case.

[george.c...@gmail.com]

I noticed that the rear risers are taller than the front risers. It seems that this would add a forward tilt to the seat and also an angle to the bolts.
Do you think if the risers were the same height that the bolts would be aligned with the nuts?

[thec...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, March 25, 2017 at 2:46:02 PM UTC-4, george.c...@gmail.com wrote:
> I noticed that the rear risers are taller than the front risers. It seems that this would add a forward tilt to the seat and also an angle to the bolts.
> Do you think if the risers were the same height that the bolts would be aligned with the nuts?

Q1: It may add a bit of a tilt, I don't really notice. I think the risers could have both been about 50% higher though...

Q2: No, the reason you must (MUST) elongate the holes in your seat rails have nothing to do with the difference in the risers height relative to each other, it is because you are rising the rails up an inch off of the floor.
The bolts, when screwed into the welded in threads in the floor are at angles in relation to each other. They are not parallel. The result is that when you raise the seat an inch, the distance between the two bolts are farther apart relative to the distance at the bottom of the bolts. The holes in the rail are drilled pretty much a perfectly round match for the diameter of the bolts. The distance is set and it does not allow for this distance variation as the bolts are farther apart an inch higher up the shaft. That is why you have to make the distance of the holes a little farther apart on the rail (by elongating the hole). It's pretty easy to do. I just wish they had told me from the git go.

[netst...@gmail.com]

Thanks for this! I'm the passenger of said Kia and this is ridiculous! Can you tell me after you have added this lift, is the seat still adjustable with forward and backward positions? Thank you so much for the play by play instruction as my husband is also a mechanic and this will work great!