Seat bracket to repair

supernova2, Jan 17, 10:12pm
Your WOF guy is an idiot. No part of a seat frame is held together with a simple spot weld. Seats take a huge amount of strain thats why the frames and mounts are made of a fairly heavy gauge steel ( in car terms). If the WOF guy thought it was so simple why didn't he offer to fix it?
I'd say the $80 was an absolute bargain.

IMHO fixing seat frames in most modern cars is the last thing most welders would want to know about. Its not the repair its the stuffing about to get to the broken bit and the stuffing about to put all the upholstery back so it looks and feels right.

Just as an example I had to remove front seats to get access to fix a leaking heater a while back. Just removing the seats took over an hour. Airbag plugs hidden under console panels, torx bolts inside the frame so modified tools, seat belts etc etc - it just went on and on. Mind you it was a Euro so to be expected !

lookoutas, Jan 29, 9:32am
Bugga me - Jag turned back up and owner told me it broke again. Grabbed hold of the seat to give it a tweak, and the other side had broken!
Checked it last time, and it looked all right.
Owner didn't want to except that - better if it was my fault.

Only took an hour to do it this time, as I knew the drill, and knew this was likely to be a freebee. So put him through the pain by telling him afterwards that it will require a complete strip-down if they break again, and will need to make up new pins & stronger brackets. And it will take about 6 hours.

andy61, Jan 29, 6:57pm
Did you mean owner didnt want to accept that? , would make sense.
What model Jag?, the only Jags I recall breaking seats are the old XJ6,havnt done many later Jags yet.

andy61, Jan 29, 7:05pm
It not the seat frame that was broken, its the mount on the floor/sill/ transmission tunnel that was broken, now we dont know what type of car it is, but it was a common problem on car years back ,like 1990 Coronas would break a bracket,often they where Taxis, weld the bracket back on ,sometimes add extra bracing and all good, they are held on by spot welds.Early Commodores would cracked the floor,seats slide would almost fall thru the floor.

lookoutas, Jan 30, 4:35am
OK - I can't 'right' the 'write' words. I don't pick on the multitude on 'hair' that get 'your/you're' - 'there/their' all mixed up.

It's a flash later model stretched version, but the same body as an XJ8. So the seats will be the same. It could even be a Daimler, I didn't turn me on enough to really care.
The hood lining is ungluing itself - nice POS.

lookoutas, Jan 30, 8:39am
Meant to type XJ6. But I think it's an 8, might even be a 12!
Who cares. This one broke where the rear up/down adjuster bracket, pins to the seat frame.
Owner said he could see about getting another seat, but I told him they're probably all getting ready to break, so best off to Kiwi modify what he's got.

056cripz, Jan 14, 7:12am
sat in my drivers side car seat other day and i have broken one of the rear brackets that hold seat in place bracket is still attached to seat but not the the car went to a panel beater and got told $80 to fix i know this is a warrant issue, any ideas where to get it done cheaper? i don't have a welder or would have fixed it myself if i knew how that is.

kazbanz, Jan 14, 7:25am
Go to pick a part and buy a complete rail and fit iot?

jmma, Jan 14, 7:27am
and buy some Diet Coke Lol (o:

msigg, Jan 14, 7:29am
If you can take it off and get a lift to a local engineering workshop, IM sure they will weld it for a dozen bevs

andy61, Jan 14, 11:56pm
To me it sounds like the bracket on the floor/sill /transmission hump has cracked or broken, not the slide on the seat so getting another seat slide rail wont fix the problem.
$80.00 sounds cheap to weld it back on, you need to remove and lift a few bits and pieces out of the way so you dont burn everything/anything.

kazbanz, Jan 15, 1:43am
andy--without the OP giving YMM its pretty darn hard but in my mind the bracket is nearly always part of the slide unit-ie welded to it.
In my mind I see mount hole in the floor.Then bolt holding bracket. Then bracket up to bottom part of seat slider

skiff1, Jan 15, 1:51am
80 seems cheap? Maybe pay for it out of your pie and chips budget? Might save you more in the long run.

lookoutas, Jan 15, 5:39am
I fixed a Jag seat on Monday - Didn't have a clue what/where it was broken, had to pull seat out, still couldn't find problem. Carry seat back and place in car so it could be plugged up and operated to show up fault. Found broken fulcrum lever that operates rear "up & down" adjustment. Back to the bench and pull away upholstery to get at broken bit. Wrap seat in itchy welding cover to avoid sparks getting on the rest of the upholstery. Weld it up, paint the welded area and refit the upholstery. Refit seat to car.
2 hours = $150 (Including GST)

$80 dollars is a pretty lean guess, and probably allowing for an hours work.
If that's too much - try the corner story.

Sorry OP. But that's nothing short of an insult to the guy who quoted you $80.
I won't go any further, otherwise I might suggest that it should cause you a large amount of discomfort.

oramac, Jan 15, 6:13am
Sounds like a typical panelbeater to me, wouldn't know anything about carseats. If out of the car a five minute fix and before you attack me, I used to make carseats for a living , including off tool samples.

intrade, Jan 15, 6:31am
diet coke is toxic graintumor stuff

oramac, Jan 15, 6:51am
They don't, but I don't like over charging for simple jobs.

grangies, Jan 15, 7:14am
So $150 including GST is too much?

Maybe you should offer your services for less.

skull, Jan 15, 8:11am
It's more fun for him to let others do the work and stand back and take pot shots at them.

lookoutas, Jan 16, 4:57am
I can say one thing for sure.
I started at 9 am, and finished it about 11 am.

Was it OK for me to have smoko in the middle?
Do others not charge time while having smoko?

Hey oramac - you probably made this one! (That broke)

And it was a Jag - some places would be charging that work out at about a hundy/hour.

056cripz, Jan 16, 10:11am
went to book a wof and they told me to try another panel beater this time i got told 140 to weld bracket back and straighten the rails, the wof guy told me it's stupid as the brackets are only held on by spot welds and they just break "well obviously"

lookoutas, Jul 15, 8:15pm
You're not doing to well at finding a cheaper option!

Should've gone with the first sucka.