We love luxurious amenities in any car. There’s nothing like the warmth of a heated seat and steering wheel in the winter as well as a ventilated seat to dissipate the heat in the summer. As always, auto climate control is a savior as you can pretty much just “set it and forget it,” however, an ultimate luxury is having front seats that massage you as you drive. They’re common on luxury cars and even trucks, but why aren’t they more common on commuter cars?

Massage seats aren’t only in luxury cars

While you can definitely find a seat massage function in cars like the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, Lexus LS, and the Audi A8, you would be surprised that you can find them in more common cars as well. For example, cars like the Lincoln MKX, Ford F-150, and the Ford Explorer all have optional seat massages as well. But why aren’t seat massagers available in cars like the Honda Accord, Toyota Corolla, or even any of the Mazdas?

Seat Massagers are mainly just a luxury

While we have seen a lot of luxury and technically advanced features like adaptive cruise control, heated rear seats, and ventilated front seats show up in more affordable cars over the past few years, we’ll be lucky if we see seat massagers become more commonplace. Why? Because they are more a function of luxury as opposed to safety or necessity.

However, one could argue that the seat massage function is necessary when it comes to health and safety. The folks over at Liquid Image posted about some of the benefits of seat massagers. A couple of worthy notes include that seat massagers improve circulation on longer drives, as poor circulation can lead to muscle fatigue as well as neck and back pains. Also, seat massagers can reduce stress and improve your mood, especially during high traffic situations.

And while we would love to see massagers offered on more new cars in the market, there’s likely just not enough demand for them. And when you consider manufacturers like Honda, Toyota, and Ford are pumping out hundreds of thousands of commuter cars every year – as opposed to the smaller amounts of luxury cars being produced – it would make sense that cost is an issue as well.

You can still opt for aftermarket massagers

In case you still want seat massagers for the lovely Toyota Corolla Hatchback you just bought, then you’ll delight in the fact that you can find them as an aftermarket option. There is currently a multitude of seat massage cushions listed on places like Amazon, as well as other online retailers, that handily strap on to your car seat and come with a wired remote to control the function. Some of them even have a heating element as well.

An additional benefit to having an aftermarket seat massager in your car to reduce the stress of sitting in traffic or enduring a long drive, you can also use it in your home office or your couch to add a nice end to your day, every day. But in case you think that the aftermarket seat massager just isn’t for you and you would rather have an actual car with that luxurious function, then we recommend getting a used Mercedes-Benz S-Class. Just don’t complain when the maintenance bills start to add up.