Noisy Power Seat Height Ajustment

[356to966]

Because my wife and I share the driving and she’s a small person, our power seats get quite a work out. I once posted on how to handle groaning noise in the fore and aft adjustment. Lately we had grinding noise in the seat height adjuster.

Here’s what I found. There’s three electic motors under each seat; one for each function: back/front, height and tilt. The height motor drives the lift mechanism with an about foot long bowden cable and this cable was the source of my noise. The cable is very similar to an old-fashioned speedometer cable and just like of old, when the cable gets noisy, it just needs lubrication.

Its an easy job though the seat needs to be unbolted and tilted up from the front to get access. No need to unplug wires. The cable is fastened on each end with a clip and two torex screws. Undo one end and feed lubricant in between the inner cable and its outer housing. You can use a dedicated speedo lube but I just patiently fed in motor oil. Now the adjustment is back to a gentle hum instead of an ugly grinding rasp.

[judgejon]

Thanks for this information.

Thumbs up!

I've actually done the lubrication of the front to rear bearing.  It's not an easy access, but with some bending, more difficult as I get older, you can get to both seats from the back.  both have to be fully extended upward to do this.

I'm assuming that the height adjustment mechanism is on the same side of both seats.  Porsche has done that with other stuff for years.  Does this sound right to you?

Also, I think there will likely be more room under the passenger seat.  Did you unbolt both seats from the floorboards to tilt them back?  And I'm guessing you also found some sort of a prop that fit to hold the seats on a tilt.  Am I close?

Cheers...

[356to966]

I only had to do the driver's side and I did unbolt the seat to tip it up to gain access and hold it with a box too. Judgejon, I think you're right, the underside of the seats mirror one another.