Rear bench won’t go back

BeagleMum · Jun 16, 2021

Looks like we will be starting our own saga!
This morning our rear seat is stuck fast in the forward position and will not budge. Awful timing as we are currently away, due home Friday night then booked to go away again Friday 25th.
Spoke to VW this morning to explain the situation they said they will look at it tomorrow but we don’t want to lose 2 days off our break so we are coming back a day early for them to look at it Friday. Not confident this is going to be sorted for us going away on 25th though.

GrumpyGranddad · Jun 16, 2021

BeagleMum said:
Looks like we will be starting our own saga!
This morning our rear seat is stuck fast in the forward position and will not budge. Awful timing as we are currently away, due home Friday night then booked to go away again Friday 25th.
Spoke to VW this morning to explain the situation they said they will look at it tomorrow but we don’t want to lose 2 days off our break so we are coming back a day early for them to look at it Friday. Not confident this is going to be sorted for us going away on 25th though.

Oh dear @BeagleMum !!! I assume you’ve tried rocking the seat etc. I hope you get it sorted.

As far as I am aware the fault on mine was the linkage to the rear near side release catch had become detached. Citygate didn’t repair it in favour of an entire replacement seat base. This had to be ordered in from Germany so took 2 or 3 weeks. They did the job in 1 day once they had the parts. You could mention this to your VW dealership and if it’s a similar fault maybe they could do a repair to get you back on the road for camping? It would involve removing the under seat drawer (easy) and then removing the metal cover plate (on the side) to access the mechanism (quite a few screws).
Good luck.

camp5 · Jun 16, 2021

I think ours was a slightly different issue as we got the bed stuck in the reclined position. Our saga is still going….not at all impressed with VW service and VW Van Centre Poole. They attempted 2 repairs both unsuccessful…long and very stressful story…hope yours is a quick fix @BeagleMum

ThomasHJ · Jun 17, 2021

To add some hope to this thread; something similair recently happend to us as well, while camping. The seat was stuck in the rear (driving) position. To be honest, after reading several posts about this issue on the forums here, I figured there wasn't much hope of us getting any sleep (the kids were in the upper bed). It seemd stuck solid and couldn't be moved. After 25 minutes of randomly trying things we managed to get it unstuck.

I fiddled with the parts inside the bench that are connnected to the lever for quite some time (sticking my arm through the hole in the under-the-seat-drawer), and stuck cuttlery into the small hole on the left side of the bench (which I believe is used when one wants to remove the bench entirely). As you can gather, I had no idea and was just randomly trying anything.

But in the end I think what got it unstuck was me sitting in the middle of the bench, getting up and 'lifting the bench vertically'. Seemed like it was somehow not straight on the rails.

BeagleMum · Jun 18, 2021

ThomasHJ said:
To add some hope to this thread; something similair recently happend to us as well, while camping. The seat was stuck in the rear (driving) position. To be honest, after reading several posts about this issue on the forums here, I figured there wasn't much hope of us getting any sleep (the kids were in the upper bed). It seemd stuck solid and couldn't be moved. After 25 minutes of randomly trying things we managed to get it unstuck.

I fiddled with the parts inside the bench that are connnected to the lever for quite some time (sticking my arm through the hole in the under-the-seat-drawer), and stuck cuttlery into the small hole on the left side of the bench (which I believe is used when one wants to remove the bench entirely). As you can gather, I had no idea and was just randomly trying anything.

But in the end I think what got it unstuck was me sitting in the middle of the bench, getting up and 'lifting the bench vertically'. Seemed like it was somehow not straight on the rails.

We are pleased to report there isn’t any continuing saga for us, just very impressive service again from VW Llandudno who responded amazingly quickly to our predicament.
They have freed the rear seat which is now working normally, we tested it numerous times before leaving the dealership it was fine.
The cause of the issue remains a mystery as there weren’t any broken components or obvious faults.

ThomasHJ · Jun 19, 2021

Did they explain (or did you see) how they fixxed the problem? Sounds a lot like my situation and would be nice for otheres here to know how to get out of such a predicament if it occurs (while camping).

podge · Jul 5, 2021

BeagleMum said:
We are pleased to report there isn’t any continuing saga for us, just very impressive service again from VW Llandudno who responded amazingly quickly to our predicament.
They have freed the rear seat which is now working normally, we tested it numerous times before leaving the dealership it was fine.
The cause of the issue remains a mystery as there weren’t any broken components or obvious faults.

Don’t want to be doom and gloom, but if they didn’t find the cause of the issue I’d be wary that there is a strong chance it will reoccur.

We had a couple of false positives until on the third occasion it went to a dealers and they dislodged and extracted a screw that they think got left in there at manufacturing.

I would consider:
1 - getting hold of a hobbyist endoscope and checking through those rail channels for any debris that could block the seat movement

2 - attaching a silicon tube to the end of a hover, and cleaning the inside of the rails frequently

3 - getting a couple of mats / carpets / rugs and placing them over the rails, this will help stop any new debris falling into the rails and we do now. We got our rugs from hug a rug, and they work very well. (The one we keep in the boot we also use outside and in front of the sliding door when setup on site)

Hope this is useful

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

BeagleMum · Jul 5, 2021

podge said:
Don’t want to be doom and gloom, but if they didn’t find the cause of the issue I’d be wary that there is a strong chance it will reoccur.

We had a couple of false positives until on the third occasion it went to a dealers and they dislodged and extracted a screw that they think got left in there at manufacturing.

I would consider:
1 - getting hold of a hobbyist endoscope and checking through those rail channels for any debris that could block the seat movement

2 - attaching a silicon tube to the end of a hover, and cleaning the inside of the rails frequently

3 - getting a couple of mats / carpets / rugs and placing them over the rails, this will help stop any new debris falling into the rails and we do now. We got our rugs from hug a rug, and they work very well. (The one we keep in the boot we also use outside and in front of the sliding door when setup on site)

Hope this is useful

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thank you for sharing that.
We have had carpets throughout since buying the van 2 years ago. It’s been fine so far but yes only time will tell.

BeagleMum · Jul 5, 2021

ThomasHJ said:
Did they explain (or did you see) how they fixxed the problem? Sounds a lot like my situation and would be nice for otheres here to know how to get out of such a predicament if it occurs (while camping).

No, we didn’t see. We were relieved to have it sorted so quickly as we were due to go away again in a couple of days, so in our ‘excitement’ we never thought to ask for further details.

KC83 · Sep 11, 2024

Mine has been doing this tonight, the first time I’ve moved it after I bought it! - but when in the upright position and positioned right at the back on the rails. Will be in the van shaking and moving and twisting tomorrow - hopefully all good!