I have an 05 Cooper S with about 36K on it. The current cloth sport seats are making trips longer than about 50 miles fairly painful on my lower back. I have been working with Recaro on changing out the seats but will loose the side air bag in the process. What happens when the side air bags are taken out of service? Does the dash light stay on or is there a way to "fool" the system so you don't loose all of the air bags in the car? Thanks for any help you might have.

 

I agree, they really screwed up by not making the lumbar support adjustable in the cloth sport seats. Through adjusting the seat angle and height, I've managed to make mine quite comfortable. Before I figured that out, my lower back was hurting too. Now, it's 400-500 miles, no problems.