Reviews for Rugged Ridge XHD Reclining Seat for 76-06 Jeep CJ-5, CJ-7, CJ-8 Scrambler, Wrangler YJ, TJ, Unlimited & Cherokee XJ

Seat is good. I bought the black denim. Installed into my 2001 XJ. Easy install. The seat is very supportive or "firm", witch is way better than the stock seats. It is a bit narrow, but once it breaks in and the foam compresses, it should be perfect! I am 6'1" and 250 lbs. I still have headroom (1-2"). The back roller adjustment is a bit hard to do when driving, so do it when stoped. The seat is built very well. The steel frame is twice as heavy as the stock seat and welded, not just tacked.

I’d hardly say it’s a factory fit for an ‘89 XJ… first you’re going to want to take the instructions and throw them in the trash. Then you can jerry rig it in a way that will work. Cheap brackets and hardware included that bend & don’t quite fit together. Once the seats in place it acts well for intended purpose as somewhere to sit.

Seat itself was mostly ok though it started to develop a wear spot on the exit side of the seat after about 6 months. It does mount to the XJ's stock sliders/seatbase but the seat cushion or some other part is much higher. I'm only 5' 8" tall and in this seat my head was really close to the headliner. Probably work fine in Wranglers but if you are even remotely tall this will have you jammed into the ceiling of your XJ.

I've received 3 of these seats now, and none are usable. One had a broken spring that was protruding out in the back, and a nice hole in the top of the head. Another had two black ink stains in the seat, and busted seams in the front corner. You get the idea. Quality as far as materials, workmanship, and especially QC is non-existent.

Second, these are ABSOLUTELY NOT direct-fit for a TJ. As others on the Jeep Forum have discovered, the brackets will need to be modified with new holes about 1" over from where they are now. The worst part though, the "axle" that goes through the seat which controls the reclining function (with two wheel handles on each side) is absolutely too long. It hits the center console on one side, and is about 2" too long on the other side, with the wheel control ramming into your roll bar. Installing these seats means you have to slide the seat up forward enough for the wheel handle to clear your roll bar, which means you lose at least 4" of your adjustability (plus whatever the radius of that wheel handle is). You'd have to cut the axle bar short for this seat to clear and fit your TJ, but in doing so, you'd have no place to mount the wheel handles, effectively removing the reclining functionality. Go search on Youtube for my Rugged Ridge XHD seat review, you'll see exactly what I mean.

That's a lot of work for some low-quality seats. If you need two of these in your Jeep, I recommend ordering at least seven of them, considering the various states of disrepair they will arrive in.