After picking up our brand new truck 9 months ago, it quickly became apparent that the head rests on the seat extended so far forward that it was impossible to sit back in the seat without my head being forced into an angled-down position -- very uncomfortable! Although the head rest adjusts up/down, that doesn't solve the problem. The dealer said they had never heard of anyone else complaining of this, and that the seat/head rest was designed for maximum safety in a crash. But if I can't drive it without developing neck and back pain, how "safe" is that? When we took a long trip recently, we ended up swapping out the head rests from our 2003 Chevy Tahoe, and that worked well. But I can't keep swapping out head rests every time I want to use the truck. Went back to the dealer to appeal for help, and they said they might be able to order different head rests (for something on the order of $200 each!), but that our only real recourse was to call GMC to complain. Yet while we were there we noticed that the new 2014 1/2-ton pickups have less angled head rests (more like our '03 Tahoe's head rests), so it seems clear that GMC figured out that this jutting-out head rest was a bad design. Another "fix" a friend suggested was to go to a shop that specializes in interior work/car upholstery, and see if they can re-shape the head rest for us, so the materials will also match the truck's interior. Any other suggestions for how to fix this? Should GMC fix this for us, or is our complaint as "unreasonable" as the dealer implies?
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After picking up our brand new truck 9 months ago, it quickly became apparent that the head rests on the seat extended so far forward that it was impossible to sit back in the seat without my head being forced into an angled-down position -- very uncomfortable! Although the head rest adjusts up/down, that doesn't solve the problem. The dealer said they had never heard of anyone else complaining of this, and that the seat/head rest was designed for maximum safety in a crash. But if I can't drive it without developing neck and back pain, how "safe" is that? When we took a long trip recently, we ended up swapping out the head rests from our 2003 Chevy Tahoe, and that worked well. But I can't keep swapping out head rests every time I want to use the truck. Went back to the dealer to appeal for help, and they said they might be able to order different head rests (for something on the order of $200 each!), but that our only real recourse was to call GMC to complain. Yet while we were there we noticed that the new 2014 1/2-ton pickups have less angled head rests (more like our '03 Tahoe's head rests), so it seems clear that GMC figured out that this jutting-out head rest was a bad design. Another "fix" a friend suggested was to go to a shop that specializes in interior work/car upholstery, and see if they can re-shape the head rest for us, so the materials will also match the truck's interior. Any other suggestions for how to fix this? Should GMC fix this for us, or is our complaint as "unreasonable" as the dealer implies?
- Sandy K., Benicia, CA, US