To aftermarket seat owners...
 

How did you feel about losing 2 airbags after swapping out the OEM seats for aftermarket ones? Was the trade off worth it? Are you nervous about getting in a crash and having someone use that against you? I'm interested in replacing my factory seats and I'm struggling with these questions. All opinions welcome!

I would feel safe replacing the oem seat with a quality fix back model.

No way no how, that is the reason I wouldn't think of it on a street car.
Now if I was racing it and had a roll cage, now that's a different matter altogether.

Recaro makes a model that has an airbag
The Sportster CS is what the 2015+ Nismo seats are based on

Don't the '15+ Nismo seats have the airbags? Seems like if someone is really concerned about the airbag issue, swapping to the factory Nismo seats would be the easy compromise.

End of the day different folks have different levels of risk tolerance. Do what you feel comfortable with and not what others tell you to do.

They do

2015 nismo is recaro sportster can backs with regular Nissan base
For the money, just get the full recaros

however just remember that with those sportsters or w/e reclining ones you wont be able to fit a harness if you decide to do that in the future

Why do you say that?

This all day.

i mean i was driving for almost 10 years before i owned a car that even HAD airbags. and I promptly replaced that steering wheel with a nardi Classico. it would be another 10 years before i owned another car with an airbag. so personally i dont really care about it. wear your seatbelt drive safe.

For the seat airbags, I wasn't too concerned. With aftermarket seats, I feel less likely to get thrown to the side. The side curtain airbags are more likely to make a difference than the seat ones.


More concerning for me by far was removal of the steering wheel airbag.

I mainly use the car for and drive it to the track. On track, I have all my safety equipment, but on the street, I only have my harness. During this period, I feel like my safety is more compromised vs stock, but it's low traffic roads in low traffic hours.

all depends on your comfort level, yes, safety improvements in the cars today, have come a long way. Remember back with little and no seat belts available at that time. Let alone the crush zones currently in the cars.

It comes down to what and how your feel.

I feel it also comes down to Insurance risks. If someone hits you and you are injured they can bring up in court, that you removed the safety devises the factory installed, and have to assume some of the fault for your injury's. Like others have stated, its your call!

most reclining seats such as the nismo one does not have harness passthrough at the bottom, which means you wont be able to do a 5/6 point harness. and most 4 point harnesses out there are not approved by track orgs and you can easily submarine in a crash, making it very dangerous. (i think the scroth or whatever has an approved one but idk much about that)

so if you want harness setup, you'd need a bucket seat with bottom passthrough. oh and a roll bar / cage (dont get a harness bar)

It's pretty easy to add a hole though.

also I'm pretty sure takata has a 4 point harness with anti submarining (SP?) available

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b1...psoflgoxqx.jpg

These holes?

I was talking about the bottom pass through for 5/6 point that fixed buckets have


and to the other point yeah you can add a hole, but I'm just not super convinced on how well reclining seats work with harnesses in the event of a crash and crumble, would need to see more data

Yeah in rear impacts reclining seats are not the best, but one needs to make compromises between a full race car and something you can still be livable for everyday. A fixed mount halo seat isn't practical.

Some folks that track their car swap back and forth between a quality track seat and the stock seat for daily driving.

^ good point, I haven't gotten to the age that bucket seats bother me much yet but I also rarely drive the car

Some folks also buy a track car, trailer, and tow vehicle.

If the accident is their fault- then you would've been COMPLETELY uninjured HAD THEY NOT HIT YOU. The blame is right back on them...

Honestly, I have been a Paramedic for 25 years, running only 911 calls the entire 25 years. I have been on MANY calls where I have said "that seatbelt saved your life". I have been on MANY MANY more calls where I've said "that helmet saved your life" (motorcycles). I can't think of any calls where I have said an airbag saved anyones life. I have absolutely said "those injuries are just from your airbag". I'm not saying there isn't a perfect scenario where an airbag CAN save a life, I am just saying I have not seen it. BTW I work for a busy department in a busy county. I run thousands of calls each year