2010 Honda Accord Crosstour: Memory Seats

I think steering auto tilt away and seat moving back/forward upon entry/exit is pretty unnecessary. I mean, it's a nice trick feature, but totally unnecessary unless you have 40" thigh and sit 12" away from your steering wheel.

"How do your car's memory seats work, if it has them?"

I grab the lever under seat seat and shove. The memory part is remembering when to stop shoving.

Low tech buts it's free and will work for the life of the car.

The seats in the Murano have an "exit" feature which slides the seat back and tilts the steering wheel up and out of the way. After starting the car again, the seat and wheel return to their previous position. However, unlike the Honda's placement, the memory buttons are placed inconveniently low on the door.

@allthingshonda: Yeah, you can slide the seat back before sitting down, but as soon as you turn the key to accessory mode, the car puts that seat right back to Driver 1's position and you knock your knees against the dash.

I'm with Warren on this one. --Erin

Memory seats in my 2010 Mazda3 simply moves the seat but not the outside mirrors. Pretty worthless, IMHO.

My 06 Ody has memory seats. The seat changes position based on what key you use and it does this when you open the door. VERY nice, although I wish it did the mirrors and the pedal adjustment too.

Given that there's an six inch height difference between myself and my spouse, I consider memory systems as vital if a car has power seats. Otherwise, there are too many fiddly adjustments to set each time. I'd go back to manual adjustments rather than buy power without memory.

We've had three over the past decade. The '01 Jetta had two memory buttons for seat and outside mirror settings. Plus you could assign a memory bank to a key fob so seats/mirrors would motor into place after remote unlock and the door actually opened.

The Touareg has the same system but adds a third memory button and settings for the steering wheel tilt/telescope, seat belt height and lumbar settings. It also has the exit/entry feature that moves the wheel up/in and the seat back/down. Handy given the higher ride height. The seat/wheel moves into place when the key goes into the ignition. One wrinkle is that our Touareg also has keyless entry so if both keys are on us, the car recalls the settings paired with whichever key does the initial unlock, even if said unlock was triggered by touching the passenger door handle. I've learned to press the fob unlock button while approaching the vehicle rather than replying on keyless when we're together.

Finally, the year-old BMW 3-series has my favorite memory implementation. It stores seat settings, outside mirrors, climate control and audio system presets for each key automatically. Unlocking the BMW recalls whatever position the seat/mirrors were in the last time the key was used. In addition, the memory buttons on the seat store two different settings for each key. That gives you three distinct settings for each key. The seat adjusts its rake upon door opening. But then the height adjusts after putting the fob into that dashboard slot. Not sure why it's a two-step process. The iDrive also has the option to toggle the seat/mirror adjustment upon door opening. I guess turning it off makes all the adjustments happen after inserting the fob but I haven't played with it enough to say with certainty.

@Erin

The memory system is linked the key fob. Unlocking the door tells the memory system which driver (1 or 2) to set the seat for. Since IL has numerous drivers you should unlink the key fob from the Crosstour's memory system. To link/unlink the memory seat press and hold lock and unlock on the key fob until the indicator light blinks twice. Now the seat will only move back to a preset position when you press the buttons on the door not everytime you unlock the car.

I had a 1990 Acura Legend with memory seats, once upon a time, long ago, etc. It had 3 buttons on the door and when you opened the door, you pushed the one with your program and the seat proceeded to set itself to the program. No fancy keys available back in the day. Worked fine until it was raining. Then you just jumped in no matter how the seat was set. Since then, I haven't owned a car with memory seats and I don't miss them at all since I'm the only driver of manual transmissions in the family. All settings stay put!

Sounds like someone needs to be teaching family members how to drive a stick. I consider it a must in my Family.

My 2005 TL has memory seats that operate in the same way. However, my Dad's 2007 DTS has the entry and exit feature. Its pretty cool, but since we are both over 6 foot, entry and exit is not much of an issue with either setup.

The MDX has the entry/exit system, but only with the steering wheel.

the rental Toyota Swagger Wagon that i borrowed had entry/exit power seats - thought it was pretty neat.

my fancy honda doesn't, wish it did... would make it easier to not mess up the leather bolsters as we've seen on some LTB cars.