Hi All,

Debating between a p300 base vs S edition. I test drove a base at the dealer and found the cloth seats to be quite comfortable. One of my hesitations about the base model is that the 8-way adjustable seats lack any lumbar adjustability. Has anyone taken the base model on a long road trip? If so, how did you feel afterwards?

 

Keep in mind no rear seat armrest on base vs S too. Probably doesn't matter to some folks but if you plan road trips with any passengers sitting back there then some people might care. I don't know why they did this for what these things cost because I suspect for a significant number of people it's an unexpected / unwanted surprise when taking delivery, but anyway... it's like raise the price of the vehicle $400 and stop making people angry for no good reason.

 

Bought my pretty base, P300 of the lot in Raleigh, NC and drove it back to New Orleans. Wife road with from the dealer to Charlotte. We thought the seats were really comfortable. I drove it roundtrip from NOLA to Memphis the next weekend. I think the seats are great, comfort wise. The heat and cooling work really well, too. But coming from an XC90 with fully adjustable, leather seats with lumbar support, at first adjusting seat height and rear/forward position by hand (like we did in our 2000 Honda Civic, was kind of comical (we literally laughed and said for $65k you'd think we had power), but we knew what we were getting and I'm already used to it (she doesn't like driving so not much adjusting going on).

Adjustability aside, if I had to do it again, I'd get the leather seats. We eat and snack in the car on road trips. The cloth seems to be a magnet for food crumbs and dirt and it's not easy to just wipe off. If this was surf season and we were driving back and forth to the beach, sand and wax would be an issue.

This weekend's task is Scotch Guarding. Never done it before, so any tips appreciated.

 

You may find this link useful:

https://landroverforums.com/forum/20...ilding-104149/

I ordered the aersopace 303 from amazon, but am still waiting for a warm day to use it.

 

I think the inquiry is about the true base model seats -- which I don't think you have if you've got cooled seats. You've have to go quite high in trim level to get full leather seats.

 

I didnt think cooled seats were available at all in any p300 model.....
I wish it were.

 

I believe with 2020 models it was possible to order them with heated & cooled seats. I went back to the dealer today and tested both the cloth & half leather seats... I found the half leather ones to be much more comfortable. What’s interesting is that both the base and S seats have the mechanical lever to move the seat back and forth; I actually really like this as it’s a common failure point in older vehicles I’ve driven. Anyways, looks like I’m ordering an S, partially because the lack of a rear center armrest would annoy me and these vehicles cost too much to not get them the way you want!

 

I'm bumping this thread only because I'm starting to configure a couple of base model 90s and I have similar concerns as the OP regarding comfort of the 8-way base seats vs the 12-way seats that are available in the jump up to the S trim. I know from my test drive of a 110 with the 12-way seats, I was slipping around quite a bit in them when cornering, there's very little side bolstering IMO. Bolstering would (should) not be any different with the base seats and I can see where sliding around may be lessened to some extent just because of the full cloth. Prior to today my go-to build was an S model as opposed to the base, primarily because of no rear seat armrest, kind of a neat workaround though is the fact that you can option in the backpack for 200 and that works as your armrest. Apparently the backpack has drink holders too, I didn't look into that part of it as I believe the 90 has drink holders on the floor, if anyone has been in the 90 back seat I'd appreciate it if you can please confirm that.

 

Chief65 I can confirm from my D90 test drive yesterday that there are cupholders on the floor for the backseat passengers.

Great idea regarding optioning the backpack for the back seat. My ordered D90 is a base and that might be my solution to the lack of a backseat armrest.

 

Another idea could be optioning the 40/20/40 rear seats, and keeping the middle section folded down. That might be enough of an armrest, but I didn't test this at the dealership.