Forklift Seats
KL01, KL11, YY03 and YY53. All four are low-back and mechanical because the overhead guard does not move — and none of them suit stand-on or reach trucks, which carry no seat at all. Send three measurements and your operator weight range, and what comes back names which of the four will bolt onto the base you actually have — and, for the ones that will not, what stopped them.
What the truck decides
A forklift seat is shaped by parts of the machine that cannot be changed. Each of the three below rules out something a general machine seat would offer you.
The guard above the operator's head is structural and its height is fixed, so three things share a single allowance — whatever the seat adds at the base, the operator's head loses at the top:
That is why all four forklift seat models are low-back, and why the published travel figures sit in a narrow band — 50 mm on KL01, 48 mm on YY53. Earthmoving seats run far more travel than that, and under a fixed guard that much travel ends with a helmet against steel.
With a load on the forks the forward view is blocked, so travelling in reverse is standard practice, not a manoeuvre. Anything behind the operator's shoulders competes with that view. Our forklift seats carry no headrest — a design consequence of the reversing duty cycle, not a feature left out to save cost.
On a truck that moves loads rather than ground, the heaviest repeated input is not the floor. It is someone stepping on the outer edge of the cushion to get in and out, all shift, from the same side. That side load sizes the frame, the bolster and the armrest hinge — so the frame specification tells you more than any damping figure.
The range
One product line, four entry points. The differences that matter are the operator weight band and the fore-and-aft travel — everything else on this list is common to all four.
Mechanical low-back with an adjustable backrest and a raised option. Operator weight 50–130 kg, suspension travel 50 mm, fore-and-aft adjustment 165 mm. Flip-up armrest and presence-switch provision. Offered in PVC or fabric on the same frame.
Mechanical low-back, no headrest, moulded rear shell. Operator weight 50–130 kg. Flip-up armrests both sides; presence switch, seat belt and slide rail are available as options rather than fitted as standard. Wear-resistant black PVC.
Mechanical, wear-resistant PVC over high-density foam. Operator weight 40–120 kg — the lighter of the two bands, which is the reason to look at it rather than at KL01.
Mechanical, PVC. Operator weight 40–120 kg, suspension travel 48 mm.
The four side by side on the two axes that separate them — weight band and fore-and-aft travel. How mounting compatibility is decided comes before any of the four is chosen.
Order a seat that will not go on, and what you have bought is a truck that stops working while it waits for the next one.
What only you can measure
Bolt spacing and mounting pattern decide whether a forklift seat can be attached. These three decide whether it can be used afterwards. All three are specific to lift trucks, and none of them appear on a spec sheet.
Send those three plus the weight range of the people who actually drive the truck — how a fitment answer is put together is the same across the site.
That last part is the useful half: knowing a seat is too tall is a different problem from knowing the connector is wrong, and only one of them is solved by picking a different model.
On many electric counterbalance trucks the seat sits on a hinged battery cover that has to be lifted to change or charge the battery. That changes two things at once: the plate is not a fixed reference, and everything routed to the seat has to tolerate being raised. Tell us which of the two you have. If it hinges, tell us roughly how far it opens.
Measure from the seat plate up to the underside of the overhead guard, with nothing on the plate. One number, in millimetres. This is the figure that decides whether a mechanical suspension can be used at all — a seat that clears the guard when new can still fail at the top of its stroke, or with the battery cover closed on it. It is also the single item most often left out of an enquiry.
If the truck expects a presence switch, we need the connector type and how much harness slack exists at the seat end. On a hinged cover the slack matters twice: once for the seat position and once for the cover travel.
Interlock, not accessory
It is the one item on a forklift seat that has a safety function, and the one most often treated as a line on an options list.
The switch is built into the seat and the truck reads it through a connector at the seat base. This is what our models are built to take — KL01 carries the provision, KL11 offers it as an option.
The truck senses the operator by its own means and expects nothing electrical from the seat at all. A seat ordered with a switch here is a seat with a harness nobody will connect.
Neither error shows up at goods-in:
Both are discovered by an operator on a shift, and both are discovered across the whole batch at once, because a batch is ordered to one specification.
Bypassing the interlock to get a truck moving turns a seat question into a liability question.
It is the reason we ask for the connector type rather than shipping the common one and letting the site work it out.
Mechanical only
Every forklift seat here runs a mechanical suspension (how suspension type is chosen across duty cycles). The choice that is left is the operator weight band, and it is an organisational question more than a technical one.
A forklift is usually shared. Two or three people drive the same truck across a day, and their weights are not close together. There is no single "your operator" to specify against, which is what makes this different from a machine one person is assigned to.
Pick the band from the spread of the roster, not from an average — an average sits comfortably inside both bands and tells you nothing.
Nobody writes "the weight band is wrong" on a defect report.
If your roster spans both bands, say so in the enquiry and it changes which models we put in front of you.
The weight adjuster is set by hand and it has to be reset when the shift changes. That is a two-second task that belongs to somebody, and on most sites it belongs to nobody. It is worth writing into the handover before it is worth writing into the purchase order.
Order of failure
A forklift seat does not fail all at once. It fails in a sequence, and the sequence is predictable enough to stock against.
Stocking these four covers the first four steps of the sequence above, which is most of what a fleet actually consumes before a seat reaches the end of its life.
Tell us the failed part and your fleet size Full replacement parts catalogue
Two real axes
Suspension type and backrest height are not axes here — all four are mechanical and all four are low-back, so putting them in a table would manufacture a difference that does not exist.
| KL01 | KL11 | YY03 | YY53 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Operator weight band | 50–130 kg | 50–130 kg | 40–120 kg | 40–120 kg |
| Fore-and-aft travel | 165 mm | — (not published) | — (not published) | — (not published) |
| Suspension travel | 50 mm | — (not published) | — (not published) | 48 mm |
| Cover | PVC or fabric, same frame | Wear-resistant black PVC | Wear-resistant PVC over high-density foam | PVC |
| Key options | Flip-up armrest · presence-switch provision | Flip-up armrests both sides · switch, belt and rail optional | — (not published) | — (not published) |
The weight band is read against the roster — it is the axis that most often decides the answer.
The fore-and-aft travel is read against cab depth: it tells you how much the seat itself can move before it meets something behind it. Only KL01 publishes a figure, which is a reason to start there when cab depth is tight rather than a reason to rule the others out.
A dash means the figure is not published for that model, not that the model lacks it. It only becomes your problem if cab depth or guard clearance is what your decision turns on — and then the three measurements answer it against your truck rather than against the table.
Stand-on and reach trucks are operated standing and have no seat to replace. Order-pickers in the same family are the same case.
Bolster, cushion, hip point
A forklift seat is mounted and dismounted far more often than it is driven any distance. Where that leaves its marks is not where a load would, and three benches in the test centre are the ones that measure it.
Creep wear is abrasion under repeated low-level load, which is exactly what the bolster edge takes from entry and exit rather than from the floor. On a category where the dominant input is a person climbing in, this bench measures the failure that actually happens first — the first step in the wear sequence.
The seat index point is the reference the whole cab geometry is measured from. On a truck where the overhead guard fixes the ceiling, knowing where the operator's hip ends up is what connects a seat dimension to the clearance the driver experiences.
A supplier who lists every machine they own is answering a different question from the one a forklift buyer is asking.
Three of the fourteen produce output that maps onto something on this page:
The other eleven matter on other categories. Ask at qualification and the bench photographs come over by email, one machine at a time — how the test centre is run, bench by bench.
Where the truck works
The environment does not only choose a cover. It reaches the suspension and the switch as well, and those two are the ones nobody asks about until something stops working.
| What we put forward | What to tell us | |
|---|---|---|
| Cold store | PVC cover rather than fabric — a non-absorbent face does not hold the condensation that forms on the way back out. Standing cold overnight is what the mechanism has to move freely after. | Store temperature, how long the truck stands in it between runs, and where the switch connector sits. |
| Wash-down | PVC cover; the seams, not the face, are where water gets in, so the stitching is what the hose should not be pointed at. | Whether the seat is hosed with the truck and how often, and where the hose points relative to the connector. |
| Dust and grit | Wear-resistant PVC at the bolster (KL11, YY03) — abrasion from clothing and hands is the load here; grit in the moving joints is the second. | Indoor floor or open yard, and whether the connector sits where dust settles. |
| Open yard | Not a standard-model environment on its own — a seat standing outdoors between shifts is a weather question before it is a seat question. Ask. | Whether the truck is covered between shifts, and whether water reaches the seat base at rest. |
The environment goes in as one input alongside the three measurements, and the answer names which of the four forklift seat models we would put forward for it — or that the environment is outside what a standard model is intended for.
The switch column is the one left out of most enquiries. It is also the column where a wrong answer stops a truck rather than shortening the life of a cover.
Every one of these seats is low-backed and short-travelled because the guard over the operator's head was never going to move.
Due diligence
Both have an answer that can be checked or refused. Ours are below each question. Ask the same two of whoever else is quoting.
Stamping, welding, foaming and assembly — ours are all four, in one building, which is what makes the traceability in question 2 possible at all. A supplier who owns two and buys two is not disqualified by that, but it changes who can answer question 2. Plant, lines and capacity are on the factory page.
Ours can be, because the four operations in question 1 all sit under one roof and log against the same build. Put this question to a trader and the honest answer stops at the purchase order they placed — a real answer, just not one you can act on when a batch goes wrong.
What we hold
ISO 9001:2015 · CE — scans sent by email at qualification. What each certificate covers.
First order
One seat on the specific truck settles guard clearance, battery-cover geometry and the switch connector before a band is committed to — how the three order shapes work · OEM forklift seat programme.
Lift-truck specific
Four that are specific to this category. The general ones — minimum order, suspension types, export documents — are on the FAQ page.
Hole spacing on its own does not settle a forklift fitment — the guard height, the hinged cover and the connector do. Send the three measurements and the answer comes back per model; see how mounting compatibility is decided.
KL01 carries the provision and KL11 offers the switch as an option. Whether you need one — and which connector — depends on the truck, which is why it is one of the three items we ask for.
The four models on this page are mechanical. How suspension type is chosen across duty cycles covers when air is worth specifying.
Yes — those are two of the four parts worth holding, built on the same lines as the complete seats. Replacement parts range.
Get a fitment answer
Three measurements and the weight range of the people who drive it. That is enough to name the models that fit — and the ones that do not.
Whichever question brought you here — the three measurements, a failed part, or the environment the truck works in — put that one in the message box and lead with it.
First reply within 24 business hours; a named fitment answer, not a catalogue, within 48 hours of your measurements.