howto Electric Seat Base Repair

[Firenza]

Does the base of your seat feel loose on one side? Does the height adjustment only work on one side?

 

Well, turns out subaru seat bases aren't as strong as they should be, and if you sit on them the wrong way, you'll bust the spot welds off the frame, leading to one side of the front of the seat squab flapping about. Hopefully it broke in a useful spot, otherwise I hope you enjoy being uncomfortable! 😛

 

Heres how to fix it, you will need;

 

• Socket Set
• 2x small bolts, washers, and nuts
• Drill + drill bits a bit bigger then the bolt threads
• Reaming tool
• Magnetic Pick-up tool

 

Step one, look at this image, everything circled is important

 

 

Step Two, Remove the seat

 

There are 4x 14mm bolts holding the seat into the car (Circled in RED) you'll have to move the seat back and forward to get to all of them.

 

Once thats done move the seat base as far forward as it can go, and the backrest to straight up to make it easier to remove the seat from the car disconnect the battery. 

 

Then disconnect the battery, press the brake pedal to disperse any latent power and you can then tilt the chair forward and disconnect the 2 connectors (circled in GREEN)

 

Then carefully remove the seat from the car and place it on something soft.

 

Step Three, Located your busted welds

 

The two spot welds (location circled in ORANGE) that hold the front of the seat will have busted off on one side (or both if you're REALLY unlucky)

 

Good Weld

 

 

BAD WELD!

 

 

Same from above, totally busted

 

 

Step Four, Fix the weld.

 

The bracket that has busted off, will be part of a assembly that hold the seat in place, and as its busted will be super loose. Every time i've seen it, the metal work holding the seat cushion is left with two nice round holes perfect for putting a bolt through, leaving you with the job of drilling holes in the bracket to match.

 

Do your best to brace the bracket, and drill two new holes. 

 

Try to get them as central to the location of the welds as possible, but if you drill larger holes and use washers you can give yourself a bit of leeway

 

Once thats done,  use the reaming tool to clear out the left over material from inside the bracket, as if left you'll end up having to squash it when you tighten up the bolts, and as theres no easy access, you may not have enough torque to pull it flat. it'll still work, but you may have to go back and tighten it up again. Use the magnet tool to recover as much metal dust as you can that fell into the seat to save it getting into the mechanisms, and the carpet once you turn it back over.

 

 

Step Five, Replace the seat

 

You just removed it, do the reverse and you should have a seat in the car bolted down that doesn't flex, and you can now enjoy(?) the feeling of lifted thighs!!

 

Make sure to test the seat through its full range of movement before you bolt it in, as if somethings gone wrong you'll both save having to unbolt it, but also if its loose you may get away with just making a noise rather then snapping something.

[Andy_Mac]

Good job on the writeup.
Had the same place fail on my old set. Meant one side would lift but the other not so much. I just drilled it out and rewelded it rather than bolting.

[Firenza]

39 minutes ago, Andy_Mac said:

Good job on the writeup.
Had the same place fail on my old set. Meant one side would lift but the other not so much. I just drilled it out and rewelded it rather than bolting.

 

Alas, i don't have space for a welder, but can just about fit a drill in the hovel I have as a garage! I did think about trying to get someone else to do it, but managed to fix it with stuff I had laying around.

 

I'm just happy theres something for people to search, When I tried searching for symptoms, I found lots with the same issue, but not much about fixing it. Hopefully this will help people try themselves, rather then just leaving it as is and being uncomfortable

[boon]

Mine seems secure enough but the vertical adjustment just makes a horrible noise and does nothing, likely broken welds or something else going on in there?

 

I never use the vertical adjust so it hadn't bothered to dig into it much yet.

[Andy_Mac]

@boon yea broken welds is a likely culprit preventing the turning bar from actually engaging anything. Or the winding block (white piece in his last pic) can sometimes semi separate and just spin around. 

[boon]

Well I have a full carpet to replace the frankly pretty flogged out one in the car, so maybe this is a good excuse to pull the seats out anyway. Job for the weekend perhaps. Nice to see that the mechanism is pretty well exposed, rather than buried in the depths of the seat.

[Andy_Mac]

1 hour ago, boon said:

Well I have a full carpet to replace the frankly pretty flogged out one in the car, so maybe this is a good excuse to pull the seats out anyway. Job for the weekend perhaps. Nice to see that the mechanism is pretty well exposed, rather than buried in the depths of the seat.

 

Leave it all plugged in but with bolts removed and lean the seat back against the rear seats and try operate the different buttons and you'll quickly see if anything isn't working

[BrrusBrother]

It appears that I have encountered the failed spot weld on drivers side inward spot weld. Automatic adjusting seat tilt doesn't work. For those who have gone before me, any chance I'd be able to do the drill/bolt repair by simply peeling back the seat cushion?