Stuck seat...a cautionary tale.

[London_Paris]

It there is one thing you don't want to do on a granturismo (at least a 2010 4.2) it is to lean the seat back forward, let the seat move all the way to the front (which it does assuming you want access to the rear) and then forget to put the seat back rearward. The penalty (which is rare, random, but real) is the seat motor that controls front back can get bound up and now you seat will not move rearward. If this happens on the passenger side, at least they can sit in the back if they are tall. Today, I had a bag of groceries behind me, pull the seat forward, left it there, and then 2 hours later, a stuck seat. Unfortunately, I am a bit tall (186cm) and it is nearly impossible to drive the car with the seat in this position.

The first time this happened (in Spain in 2017), it was the passenger seat. I took to Maserati in Marbella, they did a seat relearn to no affect, and were getting ready to remove the seat when a tap on the motor loosened it up and the passenger seat has worked perfectly since, although I am very careful not to leave the seats forward.

The dealer also said this was a very common problem.

Lets hope with a bit of overnight temperature change the seat will get its rearward motion back. All other motions (up, down, tilt, etc.) are working fine.

Bill

 

[Navcorr]

Didn't someone have a forced reset recently.
Presumably that meant brute force.

 

[spkennyuk]

It there is one thing you don't want to do on a granturismo (at least a 2010 4.2) it is to lean the seat back forward, let the seat move all the way to the front (which it does assuming you want access to the rear) and then forget to put the seat back rearward. The penalty (which is rare, random, but real) is the seat motor that controls front back can get bound up and now you seat will not move rearward. If this happens on the passenger side, at least they can sit in the back if they are tall. Today, I had a bag of groceries behind me, pull the seat forward, left it there, and then 2 hours later, a stuck seat. Unfortunately, I am a bit tall (186cm) and it is nearly impossible to drive the car with the seat in this position.

The first time this happened (in Spain in 2017), it was the passenger seat. I took to Maserati in Marbella, they did a seat relearn to no affect, and were getting ready to remove the seat when a tap on the motor loosened it up and the passenger seat has worked perfectly since, although I am very careful not to leave the seats forward.

The dealer also said this was a very common problem.

Lets hope with a bit of overnight temperature change the seat will get its rearward motion back. All other motions (up, down, tilt, etc.) are working fine.

Bill

Battery reset and then a seat reset.

I think part of the problem is because as the cars age the grease on the mechanism clogs up. Couple that with motors that are possibly getting a little tired.

Even when the seat looses it return to normal position function you should still be able to adjust it with the seat adjustment controls.

 

[alfatwo]

I had this in 1969, with an Alfa 750 Giulietta Sprint, the seat backrests were supported on adjustable screws,
After a bit of say energetic driving you could easily find your self looking up at the head lining at 80mph when the backrest collapsed!
Happy days

Dave

 

[Scaf]

I once stopped for a snooze in one of my Jags and of course reclined the seat. When it came to continued e journey the seat would not go up again no matter what I did, so I had to drive the remaining 200 miles with no support at all - too me a week to get over it. Faulty loom was the issue.

 

[London_Paris]

Well...once the temp dropped a bit (from 17 to 7) the motor decided that it could move again and so the seat is now working normally.

 

[Gazcw]

Well...once the temp dropped a bit (from 17 to 7) the motor decided that it could move again and so the seat is now working normally.

I wonder if the motor is protected with a thermal cut out or something.

 

[Jacqueline R]

After having the same problem, and reading everything I could hear on the forum I did find one solution! It's not a perfect solution but it did work! I tried all the normal stuff, trying to add pressure to the seat so it would help the motor turn, that didn't work. I tried disconnecting the battery for 45 seconds and reconnecting it to see if it would reset, that didn't work and caused a couple other issues. I unbolted the back of the seat to see if I could disconnect the rack and pinion rails and move the seat back to unbind things, that didn't work because the rack and pinion rails are riveted to the seat frame. And lastly I read that somebody took a small hammer or something and banged on the motor while using the switch, that worked! I took out a small crowbar and started wrapping on the back of that motor while using the switch and it started moving again, it smelled funny but not exactly in the way you would expect, not a burnt motor smell, but more like an old food smell, like maybe you left some seafood leftovers on the back seat overnight... this is not exactly the thing I would have thought of doing, if it weren't for reading about it here on the forum, but thank you to whoever it was that mentioned it, now I can actually have a passenger in my seat again! I obviously need to order the motor and replace it, most likely I'll be getting a Porsche motor then cutting the wires, soldering things back together, then heat shrinking the wires for protection before putting everything back together...

 

[CatmanV2]

Hmmmmm

C