2-way adjustable head restraints (cloth) 5N0881903K CIZ

As most of you already know, during a car collision a common injury to your neck happens: your neck is bending forcibly forward and then backward or vice versa. The injury, usually involves the muscles, discs, nerves, and tendons in your neck. This phenomenon is called whiplash.

Whiplash is commonly caused by a rear end collision in car accidents. For this reason, as most of you already know, the car industry designed active headrests to lessen the impact of whiplash. Active headrests protect your neck by deploying and extending the front half of the headrest forward during a rear end collision to reduce the gap between the occupant’s head and the head restraint. Some car manufacturers offer active headrests not only in the front but also in the rear passenger seats.

To my knowledge VW offers option of 2-way adjustable head restraints (y-axis: up/down & x-axis: forward/backward). These are different than active head restraints as they can be adjusted by the driver/passenger to his liking. This option is offered only for the front passengers and only in specific models. Adjustable head restraints are optional (Pr-5ZC) in Tiguan, Passat, Sharan. SEAT brand offers this option in Alhambra model. Among the VW models that do not offer this option is Golf. The thought of upgrading to 2-way adjustable head restraints has been running through my mind over and over. Furthermore, installation of these head restraints is plug and play in Golf mk7 as the seat guides installed from factory (1K0881920Q 82V and 1K0881920R 82V) are the same as the ones installed in Tiguan 2012 and Sharan 2015.

Searching in eBay or Alegro for a long time produced either no results or head restraints that are in doubtful condition. It was his last post on February 17th that the Drive2 user by the name of Alan (aka DD8888) posted saying that he sold his car without these head restraints. Suddenly I realised that there is a window of opportunity that he might sell them to me. The 5N0881903K CIZ head restraints he had are plain cloth headrests. In some Drive2 posts people wrongfully claim they have put 5N0881901H YDK as plain cloth head restraints but these (according to ETKA) have the R-LINE inscription (and cost a huge amount of money). As I have cloth seats, I decided to contact him and the photos he sent me proved that the head restraints are in excellent condition. The stiching also was light grey and it perfectly matched my seats' stiching. We quickly agreed on the sale terms. Him living in Germany made it easier as the price would not be affected by customs taxes and import duties.

The head restraints came with DHL in a few days in excellent packaging and more importantly in excellent condition. I have to publicly thank Alan DD8888 for this. I immediately installed them and adjusted them so as to reduce the gap between my head and the restraint as much as possible.