Wobble on Passenger seat after towbar fitting

[Dave_T]

Hi,

I've just had a towbar fitted on my california, which all seems to be ok. Unfortuantely there's now a problem with the passenger seat (which gets removed to fit the wiring kit).

At certain engine revs, I get a metallic knocking noise from the passenger seat. If someone is sitting in the seat, the seat has a nasty vibration in it at these points. If you adjust the angle on the seat you also get the knocking noise as the seat moves, but you don't on the drivers side.

The seat has been in and out several times for issues with the airbag, and now the towbar fitting, so maybe something has broken.

The van is with the garage at the moment, and I've just checked with them and they're saying that no fault has been found! Even though the engineer who picked it up this morning said it looked very wobbly.

I'm going to be having discussions with the engineer this evening, but is there anyone out there who has taken the passenger seat off aware of any parts that could have got lost and the engineer has not put them back.... I'm thinking spacers, washers & stuff like that.

It's this sort of stuff that aggravates me about owning a car...

 

[Californiaman]

I've had my passenger seat out and apart to repair the wiring loom to the airbag and can't think of anything obvious. Which bit seems loose? Is it the whole thing, including the base that bolts through the floor? The seat base or just the seat back?
If the seat has been apart, the seat base slots in - I guess if that isn't refitted correctly it could cause odd movement but would be pretty obvious....
Can you video it?

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

 

[Dave_T]

Hi, thanks for replying!

It looks like the base that's attached to the floor is fine, it's where the seat is attached to the rails, or on the swivel where the wobble is. If I look where the seat rotates on the back right of the seat, there are some small grey washers that bash against a guide rail, which I think is what's generating the noise.

I'll see if I can take a picture of it this evening

Thanks
Dave

 

[Dave_T]

The engineer returned the van... The knock is still there. I think the knock is actually being produced between the two swiveling plates, rather than the guide 'washer' things. I think it needs a new swivel, however I reckon that in true vw style, you can only order the entire seat or something daft like that!

The engineer is going to do some comparisions between our van and another california, next time they've got one in, which should be sometime next week

I can see this dragging on for ages already... :-(