Hundreds Of Products Ready Today. Dispatch/Collection Customer Question: Sitting Too Low In A Clio 197, And The Kit That Raises You Back Up
Customer question, Renault Clio Mk3 197
This came in on the phone this week from a chap running a Clio 197. He has our SW Motorsports direct fit side mounts in it, the seat is bolted more or less straight to the floor pan, and he cannot see over the scuttle properly. He wanted to know which seat he should buy instead.
None of them. The shell is not what put him down there. A fixed bucket has no height adjustment in it at all, so whatever you bolt it to is what sets your hip point, and on a Clio Mk3 there are two very different ways of doing that. One drops you as low as the car will physically allow. The other lifts you back towards where the factory seat had you and gives you a slide as well. Both are on this page with what they cost.
- The bracket under the seat sets your height, not the seat shell
- Direct fit side mounts bolt to the floor and give the lowest position in the car
- A subframe with universal side mounts on top raises you and lets you pick the height
- The Endurance multi point brackets carry four rows of slots, so the position is yours to set
- Low build £123 a side, raised build about £227 a side, both including VAT
Why it is the bracket and not the seat
A factory Clio seat has a frame under it, a set of runners, and on most trims a height lever you have probably wound most of the way up without ever thinking about it. A fixed bucket has none of that. It is a shell with mounting holes, and it ends up wherever the brackets put it.
Direct fit side mounts are cut for one car and they bolt onto the standard floor mounting points. The seat then hangs between the two uprights with nothing underneath it at all. That is genuinely the lowest a seat can go in a Clio Mk3 without cutting the floor, and nothing has been fitted wrong. That is what the part is for. A car with a cage in it needs helmet clearance and a competition car wants the weight down low, so the bracket is drawn to give you both. On a road car with a standard roof and no helmet, all you get from it is a poor view over the bonnet.
The two builds, and the order things bolt up
The two builds, drawn as an assembly order
Every block is drawn the same size on purpose. We do not publish a height figure for any of these brackets, so this shows what bolts to what and how many parts end up between the floor and the underside of your seat. It is not a scale drawing and the real gap between the two builds depends on which shell you are fitting. The seat itself is identical in both.
Ultra low, one part
SW Motorsports direct fit side mounts, £123 a side. They bolt to the floor, the seat bolts to them, and that is the whole job. Fewest parts, least money, least weight, and the lowest you will get without a fabricator involved. This is what is in the car now.
Standard height, three parts
A direct fit subframe on the floor, universal multi point side mounts on top of it, and a sliding runner in between if you want the seat to move. About £227 a side. More parts and more money, and you get to choose the height instead of accepting it.
The ultra low build, and who it actually suits
Look at the picture. The bottom of that bracket is a flat slotted foot that sits on the floor pan, and the seat hangs off the uprights above it. There is no frame, no runner and no packer anywhere in the assembly, so every millimetre you have is the height of the bracket itself.
It is a good part and we sell plenty of them. In a caged Clio running a helmet, it is the correct answer and the lightest way to do the job, because there is simply less metal in it. In a road car it is the thing people buy because it looks purposeful and then quietly regret every time they pull out of a junction. Your bracket is doing its job perfectly well. Its job is just not the one you want doing, and Garreth would sooner tell you that than sell you a seat that changes nothing.
£123 a side, handed, so a driver side and a passenger side are different parts.
The raised build, three parts
The subframe. SW Motorsports do a direct fit subframe for the 197 at £138 a side. It is a flat steel plate with floor tabs at the corners and hole clusters round the edge, and it takes the place of the standard runners. Where the side mounts put the seat on the floor, this gives you a platform above it.
The side mounts. Endurance Motorsport multi point M8 brackets, £46.80 a side without bolts or £51.60 with them. The word that matters is multi point. Count the slots on the upright face in the photo. Four rows, which is four height settings and a bit of tilt on top, so you can set it, sit in it, and move it if it is not right. A fixed bracket gives you one answer and you live with it.
The runner. A Sparco sliding runner kit is £41.94 for one seat and goes between the subframe and the side mounts. Optional. If nobody else drives the car, plenty of people set the position once and skip it.
What the two builds cost, per side
| Part | What it does | Per side |
|---|---|---|
| Ultra low, what is in the car now | ||
| SW Motorsports Clio Mk3 side mounts | Bolts to the floor, seat bolts to it | £123.00 |
| Total | £123.00 | |
| Standard height | ||
| SW Motorsports Clio 197 subframe | Platform on the floor mounting points | £138.00 |
| Endurance multi point M8 side mounts | Four rows of height slots | £46.80 |
| Sparco sliding runner kit | Fore and aft movement, optional | £41.94 |
| Total | £226.74 | |
All prices include VAT and are correct on 14 August 2026. Per side, so double them for a pair. Everything here is handed, which means the driver side and the passenger side are separate parts and you order them separately. Add £4.80 to the side mounts if you want them supplied with the M8 bolts, which is worth doing unless you already have a box of them. Drop the runner and the raised build is £184.80 a side.
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From £102.50 Excl. VAT Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page
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What actually changes when you come up
The obvious one first. You see more of the road and less of the dashboard, the bonnet stops being a horizon, and placing the car on a narrow B road gets a lot easier. That is usually the whole reason people ring us about this, and it is the bit that fixes itself immediately.
Getting in and out is the other one nobody mentions until they have lived with it. A Clio Mk3 has a fairly high sill and a low seat means you drop down past it and then climb back out. A few inches up makes the car feel like something you can use on a Tuesday morning.
Two things to check before you assume. If you run a harness, raising the seat changes the angle from your shoulder back to the bar or the eye bolts, and that angle has limits, so tell us if there is a harness in the car and we will look at it with you. And if you have a cage in it, headroom is now a real number you need to measure with your helmet on, not a guess. Cameron will want to know both before he lets an order go out.
Is there a cheaper way to gain an inch?
Fair question, because £227 a side against the £123 already spent is not nothing. The answer is no, not one we would put our name to. Packing a side mount up on spacers changes how the bolts are loaded and leaves the bracket working in a way it was not drawn for, and we are not going to talk you into that on a car you drive on the road.
Garreth’s view on the money is that the subframe is the part to buy properly and the runner is the part to skip if it comes to it. Drop the runner and you are at £184.80 a side, which is £61.80 more than the brackets already in the car and it fixes the actual complaint. Adding the runner later is a twenty minute job on the driveway.
One other thing. The side mounts you already own are a saleable part in good condition, and Clio 197 fitting kit does not sit around for long second hand. Get what you can for those and the real cost of the change comes down a fair way.
The bracket spacing on your seat is what decides whether the Endurance multi point brackets bolt straight to it, and shells are not all drilled the same. Send a photo of the side of the seat with the mounting holes visible and Cameron will confirm the whole stack in one go, subframe, brackets and runner, before you spend anything.
Common questions on this
Do I need to buy a different seat to sit higher?
No. A fixed bucket has no height adjustment in it, so the shell is not what put you low. Change what is underneath it and the same seat sits wherever you want it.
What is the actual difference in height between the two builds?
We do not publish a millimetre figure for any of these brackets, so we are not going to quote you one. What we can tell you is that the low build has one part between the floor and the seat and the raised build has two or three, and the multi point brackets give you four settings within that. Bring the car over and Cameron will put a tape on it with you.
Can I keep my SW Motorsports side mounts and add a subframe under them?
That is not the combination we would sell you. The SW brackets are cut to bolt to the floor and the universal multi point brackets are the ones designed to sit on top of a frame with adjustment. Ring us with what you have and we will tell you straight whether yours will do the job.
Is the runner worth the extra £41.94?
If anyone else ever drives the car, yes. If it is only you, set it once and keep the money. A fixed seat is lighter and there is one less thing to work loose.
Are these parts handed?
Yes, all of them. A driver side and a passenger side are different parts and you order them separately, so if you are doing one seat now and one later, do the driver side first and pick the RHD driver side option.
Will the Clio Mk3 subframe fit a 197 or do I need the 197 one?
We list both, at the same £138 a side, and the 197 part is the one drawn for your car. If you are ordering online and you are not sure which you are looking at, ask us and we will point you at the right listing.
Where to go next
If the runner question is the one you are stuck on, our complete guide to universal seat sliding runners goes through what fits what in more detail than this page does.
For a look at how a Clio Mk3 comes out with buckets in it, the Sabelt GT3 seats we fitted in a customer Clio is the car in the photo at the top of this page, and our Clio Mk3 and Mk4 package shows the SW brackets alongside a seat.
Or just ring 0115 9893488 with the car and the seat you have in it. This is a five minute conversation at our end and it saves you buying a bracket that puts you back where you started.