Bought this car in 2015 with in two months started having back ache and neck pain. Then realize it was head rest design . Seriously how did they come up to decide on this horrible head rest design. I am using small Pillow to avoid the head rest weird angle all this years as temporary solution which is now seems it will be till I own this car. While buying this car in 2015 , feel regret that did not see how bad head rest angle is . It annoys me till date, did not know where to file complaint but I found something similar on this website and felt necessary and putting it here even after six years after car was purchase.

After purchasing this car new and driving it for 3 months, I noticed there was an issue with the head rests being angled too far forward, pushing my head forward and leading me to recline my seat way back in order to get the headrest to be vertical. Every few minutes, I need to straighten my back because of the pain this has been causing me. I am considering buying a used headrest and taking it apart to figure out how to modify it. I have seen other Honda Civics and Accords of similar year with the head rests rotated backwards. I have tried this and due to the head rest angle there is no longer any support provided in a backwards position.

The head restraint angle is ridiculous. I fail to see how pushing someone's head forward so much that your neck is bent into an uncomfortable position which compromises your spinal alignment is somehow supposed to keep you safe if there is an accident. Wouldn't this also result in a neck injury? It certainly results in chronic pain unless adding aftermarket items to correct the issue or simply disabling the headrest (which is a horrible risk to take for day to day comfort).

The only solutions currently available to fix this is either adding your own back padding and hoping it will be sufficient to also maintain alignment during an accident or getting the headrest bars bent into the correct position which will probably compromise its strength.

Regarding a solution that doesn't have safety compromises of its own, I suppose you could magically transform yourself into someone who is average too tall in height, has a thick torso (so the angle doesn't affect you as much), and likes to have their seat leaning back by at least 25 degrees, OR, Honda could take their lovely design team and figure out how to make the headrest safe for everyone that doesn't fit into this category. As in, have an adjustment available to the angle and put in a blurb in the safety section of the manual stating how to properly adjust the headrest to be safe.