If you are an owner of an older jeep or if you want to upgrade your jeeps comfortability, I’ll give you a few tips in this article. I’ll try to cover the Upgrading of driving seat comfortability and How can we reduce the interior vibrations by the outer impacts.
First most important thing is to identify your problem. It may be with your seats or exterior mechanical parts. First identify that.
As interior upgrades you can replace the diving seat with a seat like a PRP daily driver or Tiburon seat set. As exterior upgrades you can replace your shocks with Rancho rx5000. We’ll discuss all of those things in this guide.
In the jeep production line, it’s not a secret that older jeeps are not much comfortable for daily driving. But I don’t think it’s a fault. According to most of the old jeepers,
Jeeps should be capable and rugged. For the comfortability there are cars !!.
But there are exceptions for those things. Now we use our jeeps as our daily driver and also for off-roading adventures both. These needs are understood properly by jeep manufacturers.
We can see that from the new jeep wrangler in 2020. They integrated all the comfortability and modern options, while keeping its rugged appearance as much as possible.
Contents
Driving seat comfortability
Still you may have problems with your jeeps driving experience on the pavement. It depends on the person. According to my experience some people have problems with their driving seat while some do not.
Some have an awful driving experience on long distance while some have a very comfortable driving experience on the same jeep models with the same stock parts. So let’s start with the driving seat.
Raising seats and relocation..
If you are a tall person more than 6′ , usually you may need to raise your seat about an inch or two. Then the seat can relocate back.
That modifications will improve your correct seating posture while driving. It will avoid knee pains and back pains in the long term run.
But this seat raising may be applicable for a short person also sometimes. If you can’t see the front through windshield properly or you are seeing the front through your steering wheel. Then also you need to consider raising the seat.
As an extra comfort option you can fit seat heaters. It will give a better feeling for people who have back pains also.
How to raise your seat.
It’s easy. You can find jeep seat raising kits on the market. Just google it. There are jeep seat riser kits like below image. You can raise your seat with them. But make sure to buy a kit compatible with your jeep model.
Check Price on Amazon
But..
If you have an older jeep sometimes interior structures of your seat may be damaged. So check that out.
You can compare with the front passengers seat and use some common sense. If that is the case you may need to consider buying a new seat.
I’ll give you few seat options. But there are a lot of seats you can find out for various price ranges. So check on local stores.
Few seat options.
PRP Daily driver.
PRPseats.com is manufacturing a custom seat for jeeps. It has lower sides that ease the getting in and out from the jeep, forward angle head rest for better head support with seat dimensions of 33” Tall x 22” Wide x 26″ Deep.
I like this seat because of its vast range of customizations. you can have air lumbar support for extra $75 and seat heaters for extra $165. There are many more customizations you can get easily. But the cost increases with extras.
Tiburon seats for TJ
I don’t have personal experience on this seat. But from my research I had found that a Hyundai Tiburon seat is a better low price option for a TJ. For less than $150 you can fit those seats.
But you may have to do minor modifications to the seats. But they are not much affect for the appearance of the seat and you can do them on your own. I’ll put the link at the end of the article to see how it can be done.
you can find those seats with heaters. But if you were unable to find a Tiburon seat set with heaters, you can fit them easily. There are heaters for low prices.
Other than those two seat options, you can find many more brand new seat sets with different options if you are not worrying too much about the cost.
But if you are finding a cheap way to replace your seats then you can go for a Tiburon seat set or most of the two door car seats may go with your two door jeep, if you have a two door jeep.
So those are the main things you can do to upgrade the interior comfort of your jeep. Now we’ll look for external modifications you can do for a smooth long time drive on highways.
Tyres and tyre pressure..
Before changing the tyres you can test with reducing tyre pressure for around 26 – 28 psi according to tyres.(if you have C rate tires 26 psi is suitable). It may work for your case.
But if it doesn’t work for you then consider changing shock absorbers and then tyres to a good low profile tyre set.
Shock absorbers
That means before changing the tyres you can test with changing your shocks. A better option is Rancho RS5000X shocks. Most of the time the harsh feeling of riding on highways happens due to shocks.
Shocks and springs are acting simultaneously in two different ways.
When your wheels go on a bumper, springs get that impact and tend to bounce your vehicle up and down. At the same time shocks try to stop that bouncing and hold the vehicle in place.
What does that mean? That means if your shocks are older or stiffer, the drive will be harsh. So if you want a smooth ride you have to change the shocks.
Normally jeep stock shocks are made stiffer and give a hard driving. So Rancho 5000 may help to achieve your goal.
Sometimes due to malfunction of the shocks, the jeep may tend to bounce up and down more than usual. If you are on a long trip, that will be very difficult for persons in the cabin. That problem also can be solved by changing shocks.
Check Rancho Shock Absorbers Price on Amazon
springs
Older jeeps have leaf springs. That also gives a rough driving experience on highways. Leaf springs are best for carrying heavy loads. But for a smooth driving coil springs are the best.
So if you have leaf springs, replacing them with coil springs will give a smooth driving.
Mainly those modifications will make your jeep riding smooth on highways. In this article I mainly focused on interior upgrades you can do.
Because some jeep users get long term back pains and knee pains by riding jeep on highways for long periods. So if you are more interested in reading exterior mechanical upgrades for a smooth ride click here link to read on that.
I had found a good article on suspension upgrades at extreme terrain.com. so read that also.
If you are a TJ jeep owner I wrote an article on TJ mods you can add to your jeep for cheaper than $100. There I added a good seat heating option suitable for many jeep wrangler models for a very cheap price. You can read that article by clicking here.
For jk owners I wrote an article including cool and cheap jk mods that costs you less than 100 bucks. You can read it by clicking here.
If you think this article may be helpful for your fellow jeepers, share this with them. You just have to hit a share button below.
Have fun and safe off-roading !!
Featured image credit:pinterest