If you haven’t noticed already, I’m fixated on seats, specifically how many ways they adjust. An earlier blog entry pondered the rarity of adjustable side bolsters. TrueDelta’s price comparison tool lists each seat adjustment separately. And now this blog entry.

You also may have noticed Detroit’s fondness for the six-way power seat. Such a seat has power adjustments for fore-aft, front height, and rear height (each bi-directional adjustment counts as two “ways”). What it does not have: power recline.

Oddly, in foreign brand cars a power passenger seat often will be a four-way unit, with power fore-aft and recline, but no height adjustments.

Why the difference in power seat philosophy?

As with many of life’s big questions, I haven’t a clue. Well, perhaps a bit of one: back when I started driving even a manual recliner was an option on many domestic cars. The six-way power adjuster dates from Detroit’s glory days, when it didn’t believe in reclining seats of any sort. Why not? Well, about that I truly haven’t a clue.

But I can say that if a seat has any power adjustments, then one of them should be power recline.

There are many perfectly usable manual fore-aft adjusters and manual height adjusters. In contrast, manual recliners are never good. There are two types: the continuously adjustable rotating knob and the detented lever. The knob has significant advantages, including a stronger, more reliable mechanism and the already mentioned continuous adjustment. But it also has one huge disadvantage: it must be mounted near the pivot point of the seatback. In that location, no one can reach it comfortably, and some people (especially older people) cannot reach it at all. So domestic cars tend to have the lever. With a lever, you must select from among a set of fixed positions. Too often none of them will be quite right. One will be overly upright, while the next will be overly reclined.

If you want a continuously adjustable recliner that is reasonably easy to operate, it has to be power.