My seat is killing me...

Post Thu Nov 03, 2005 8:57 pm

I recently bought an 88 F Reg 325i touring which has done 127k miles. I really like the car but the standard leather drivers seat is uncomfortable after driving for a few miles. As the seat is shiny and has little support you tend to slide all over the place on corners but the main problem i think is that the foam in the seat base seems to have lost its 'foaminess'. If you oush it down with your hand then you can almost feel the seat frame beneath it. Has anyone else had this problem and can it be fixed? I was wondering if it is possible to take the seat apart and then put some new foam in but not sure if it would be as simple as this.

Cheers for any help.

Post Fri Nov 04, 2005 7:17 am

i lot of guys are stripping cars over here, maybe they have a seat that is the proper color. I think it would be a cheaper and easy option to get a good 2nd seat for your car.

Post Fri Nov 04, 2005 10:29 am

Stripping E30 seats right down is an easy, but fiddly job.
Best plan would be to get a good used passenger seat base and change over the cover and levers.

Post Fri Nov 04, 2005 4:18 pm

I retrimmed all the seats in my car, not a hrad job but a wee bit time consuming. If it's only the base your looking to do then it will be pretty easy as this comes away in one section. Take the seat out and at the bottom of it you will see a lot of wee bent bits of metal that the cloth/leather will be pierced onto, straighten them with pliers and unhook the material, then along the bottom of the foam you sit on will be strips of wire with 'o' rings clipping the foam to them, again open these with pliers and this should start to free the base of the seat and let you take it away altogether. you can then sticka new piece of foam into it.

Sorry it's not the best set of guidelines but hopefully you can get the jist resolve your problem easy enough.

Heres what my seat stripped down to and finished as

Post Fri Nov 04, 2005 4:36 pm

Aside from the foam support, does anybody know if it's possible to refurbish the seats to reduce slack in the mechnicals? The back of mine is becoming loose, and the whole seat does not feel 100% secured to the car and if I can tighten it up a bit it'd be nice.

N

Post Fri Nov 04, 2005 4:43 pm

When i got the car the back of mine felt like it was falling away at one side. When you take the Hard backing off the seat there is a big phillips head screw on each side. I tightened them up and hey presto, jobs a good'un

Post Sat Nov 05, 2005 2:19 am

These large screws coming loose is very common.
If not attended to, the seat frame will be twisted, and then crack, leading to a MOT failure.

Post Sat Nov 05, 2005 10:05 am

Thanks for all your replies. Since my first post i have found a local place who are going to strip the seat and put in new foam. The company are called Auto Interiors and are at 6 Moat Way, Barwell, nr Hinckley, Leics LE9 8EY. Tel. 01455 847900. They are next door to the Noble Sportscar factory and did the development work for their cars. I'll let you know how they get on. Then i might need to get some car seat covers (just like Grandad used to have!) to put on the leather seats to stop me sliding off the damn thing on every corner. Cheers.

Post Sat Nov 05, 2005 3:56 pm

Well I took mine apart this afternoon, and although I couldn't remedy the slack between the runners and seat, I did find one of those large philips screws fall out as I took the seat back off. An easy thing to check/fix as you don't even need to take the seat out to do it.