PAREDLINE

For all of you with a seat motor that doesn't go forward or back- I fixed mine today. It finally got on my nerves enough.

I didn't take pictures but while it's fresh I will summarize.

There is nothing wrong with the motor itself. What happens is one of the contacts inside the motor bends and doesnt make contact with the shaft. As a result of this, the motor doesn't work.

First thing you need to do is get the seat off.

Step 1: If the seat is in a position where you cant get access to the bolts do the following:

From the back seat floor look under your driver seat. You will see (or feel) two screw shafts going from the front to back. About 1/3 of the way back from the front you will see a 10mm bolt on each side.

Remove this bolt on each side. It might be a little tricky because you cant really see it but you can probably feel it. I used an open end ratcheting wrench to remove mine.

Once you do this, the seat will move forward and backward freely.

Step 2: Remove the seat bolts. 2 in front. 2 in back.

Step 3: You don't need to remove the seat. What you will need to do is rest the seat on its back so the bottom is facing the front of the car.

Step 4: If you haven't done step 1 yet. Do it now.

Step 5: The motor thats in the front of the seat is the one you have to fix. Give it a few taps. See if it works now. Chances are it will. Only you're not done. You will see a motor with a shaft that runs from left to right. 90 degrees to the screw shafts.

Step 6: There are 4 philips screws on each side of the front of the seat. Remove these screws. The motor should drop out of the mechanism along with the horizontal shaft and the screw shafts. If it does not drop out, you unbolted the wrong bolts.

Step 7: Take the entire thing to a clean working spot. Loosen the 3 screws holding the motor together. Take the metal cover off the motor. Inside is a magnet so you will have to pull a little.

Step 8: Once the cover is off, pull on the shaft of the motor so it disengages

Step 9: You will see two metal contacts near the base of where the shaft is inserted into the drive mechanism (the thing you just pulled out)

Chances are one or both of these contacts is not making contact with the shaft.

They both should be in contact with the shaft for the motor to work. Simply bend the one that's deformed back towards the center.

Step 10: Reassemble everything with the motor. You can clean out the inside but dont use anything that's too strong that it will strip the lubrication.


Step 11: On each of the screw shafts there is a mounting site where the shaft mounts to the actual seat. These must be in the same location on each side of the seat or else the seat will be crooked.

To ensure you assemble them in the same location (it gets a little tricky here) first screw them by hand so that both sides are on the bottom (furthest away from the motor).

Then turn both of them 5 turns toward the front. or 3 turns or 7. Just turn them both the same amount.

Step 12: Reassemble the entire assembly back onto the bottom of the seat.

Step 13: Reattach the 4 phillips bolts on each side

Step 14: Reattach the harness to the seat motor.

Step 15: Using a helper, one person hold both of the mounting sites on the screw shafts while another one presses the button to move the seat back. This will move the mounts back to where they mount onto the seat.

Replace the 10mm bolts you removed and make sure the location of the mounts along the screw shaft is exactly the same on both sides.

Step 16: Replace the seat and bolts. Everything should be working.



I had no idea what I was doing in the beginning so I removed the seat back and the airbag harness was there. I disconnected that. I don't know if it's essential. I would do that just to be extra safe.

TheSpaZinNOVA

When you did this did your seat back still tilt front/back, or were all the power movements in-op? My seat back tilts but the seat itself wont move forward,backward, up or down.

Anyone else have this problem or a simpler fix?

-Donovan

sascuderi

Thanks for taking the time to do a write up. I am saving what you wrote for future reference!

PAREDLINE

My seat would move in every direction except forward-backward.

When you push the button for the seat bottom do you hear a click underneath the seat? That's the relay box. If you don't hear the click that's probably your problem.

The front-back problem is so prevalent that Nissan/Infiniti actually put out a TSB on the subject. Of course they want you to replace the seat motor and screw rails for $245 (part) plus 2 hours labor.

If your seat bottom is not moving at all, you may have 3 bad motors (unlikely). A bad switch or the relay box is bad (I dont know the official name for the relay box but thats what it is. A box of relays). You might even want to check if power and ground are going to the motors. There are a series of harnesses under the seat and unfortunately you cant get to them unless you remove the seat and prop it up on its back.

TheSpaZinNOVA

Pared,

Thanks for the info.. I'll give your walkthrough a try and see what i can find out...

Donovan

CKOTuHA

iTrader: (11)

What if everything works, but for forward-backward only my right side moves about 1/2 inch and the left side of the seat doesn't do anything.
I was trying to look at the rail, but couldn't see anything.

PAREDLINE

Either the shaft from the motor is stripped or disconnected on the right side

or

there's something stuck in the rail

xTeCaOx

my seat moves forward and backwards and tilts back but sometimes doesnt tilt back up and the bottom part i cant adjust it in the front or back........i dunno if that was confusing or not but essentially my seat only moves forward and backwards what do you suppose the problem is there??

Lontar1

iTrader: (5)

will follow this to fix mine... Thanks good job....

PAREDLINE

Do the same thing. See if you hear a click when you push the slide switch in each position.

If you hear a click, it means your motors either arent getting power, or they're not functioning.

I only did the front motor but you can use the same procedure for the rest of the motors. They're just located in different positions.


There's one motor in the front to move the seat front-back
There are 2 motors for the seat bottom tilt.

There's another motor in the back that works a chain on the side for the seat back tilt.

If your seat is that F'd up and you don't really want to spend time to open and check the motors, you might just want to get another seat from the junkyard.

dubious

iTrader: (4)

Thanks for the writeup -

I'm on step 6 - but can only get to the bottom two screws on each side - the other two are up behind the plastic seat trim - don't see an easy way to get to them. Maybe a difference in the 2k2?

PAREDLINE

you can disengage the plastic seat trim and move it so you have access to the other 2 screws

trigger005

iTrader: (8)

some pictures would have been even more awesome
hopefull ill b able 2 figure it out when i take mine apart

... i was wonderin how to get at the back bolts!
thx

dubious

iTrader: (4)

Here's a few pics of where I'm at - As you can see, the upper two screws on step 6 are behind the plastic trim.

Boltholes from step 1 circled in yellow











I thought about trying to fit a right angle screwdriver in there, but as you can see, the screws are pretty long - and I wouldn't have room to remove them.




Will see If i can figure out how to move the trim without taking the seat apart - don't see any obvious clips/screws. The outer trim goes all the way around the seat.

dubious

iTrader: (4)

Well - After manhandling the plastic trim enough, I was able to get it out of the way to get most of the screws out. The top screw closest to the console ended up getting stripped. After a few choice words, I found that I could seperate the flex shaft from the motor housing and remove only the side that was attached to the motor.

Here's pic of one side removed from seat.


Here's the unit w/ motor cover removed.


Here are the metal contacts (brushes) from step 9.


You can see how the bottom brush is barely making contact. This is the piece you'll want to "tweak" to make better contact with the shaft or "commutator". You'll want to clean the shaft/commutator and brushes as much as possible to remove carbon buildup that will inhibit electrical contact. Alcohol or electrical contact cleaner works well.

Put everything back together and works great.

I thought about doing this a while back - even started removing the seat bolts...just couldn't figure out how to get to the back bolts. Removing the bolts in step 1 to allow free motion of the seat was the trick.

Thanks again PAREDLINE !!

PAREDLINE

nice pictures. My seat wont move-- again. I will be doing this procedure again soon.

trigger005

iTrader: (8)

keep us updated

and thanks much for the pix dubious, they r awesome!

stuie2

Great pics. I just tapped the motor to get it moving. I'll go for the full repair on a weekend.

BigOgre

iTrader: (1)

My seat stopped sliding forward so i had someone hold the button forward and i hit the back of the seat with my hand a few times and its all good!

danger300z

iTrader: (4)

great info here .

maximovrdrv

Great write ups! I wish I had thought of checking here before I did mine 2 years ago! I got the TSB, ordered the part and went to work. It took me 3 hrs. to get the seat out and 30 mins. to get it fixed and back in. I couldn't get the seat to move foward so I could get to the bolt by the seatbelt clip on the floor. I ended up tearing up the trim piece to get to it and then I fashioned an open ended socket to get it out!!! That was the worst!

farhanm

nice write up!. I used this and the TSB diagrams to open up my 03 maxima driver side power seat. The problem was that the seat only moved from one track. the left side track( towards the door) didnt move. Anyways so I opened up the motor and assembly to find out that the plastic cog thats suppose to make the worm gear move is all messed up. therefore the motor turns but since the cog is messed up, the worm gear doesnt move and the seat doesnt slide.

I was wonderign if I could just replace the plastic cog. everything else is fine. heres the picture of the cog i am talking about.





Any ideas where i could get a replacement cog from?

Thanks

edgar5453

iTrader: (1)

It seems that the "shifts to one side" symptom is very common, and is what i'm experiencing as well. I'm glad this thread came up. I took a different approach to get under the seat, but never got to removing the worm gear. Maybe I have a bad cog too...

Edgar

farhanm

just a follow-up on the cog/gear. I can't seem to find this anywhere. i visited a few junkyards to buy a salvaged seat motor kit. but i couldnt get anything for less than $150. it felt stupid spending $150 on a stupid plastic thing.

Now ive decided to mold the gear myself using resin. fingers crossed. Lets hope it works out. will keep you guys updated.

raaizin

Silly question, My seat only moves foward toward the steering wheel. I cant move it backwards away from the steering wheel. Is it the switch or will this fix work for me??? Most of the post I see people say it doesnt work in the foward & back position. I was thinking it was the switch itself since I have foward movement.

Philbert579

If you have travel in one direction only, it is most likely the switch itself rather than a motor or relay. If you have the tools and knowledge to do it they're fairly easy to check, if not I'm sure a junkyard replacement isn't too costly for a try-out part.

FCPImport

iTrader: (1)

http://forums.maxima.org/group-deals...group-buy.html

Fits 03-Up. Not sure if you specified what year all you guys are trying to fix.

mplomondon311

I just found the same issue with the plastic gears in the seat motor on my 2000 i30. Who the heck thought that one up... plastic gears? anyway if anyone finds a fix let me know

TunerMaxima3000

iTrader: (4)

I went through similar symptoms, got the TSB, etc, etc. And after a bunch of screwing around, decided, it's a motor, why not give it a little tap with a hammer?

It's been working since then (about 3 months now).

Just a good idea before you screw around much, at least try it, could just be stuck!

bjr

Thanks for the write-up, will follow this when the weather comes back above freezing.

foodmanry

iTrader: (15)

The hammer tap will only work for so long....it worked for me for about 6 or 8 months before the motor totally cr*pped out. I luckily found a used one.

If I were you I would be on the lookout for a used one.

mplomondon311

The only thing is, you have to see if the plastic cog is physically broken. There seems to be several problems it could be. Cleaning the brushes or tapping the motor won't work if the gear is broken in half.

foodmanry

iTrader: (15)

Right, but 90% of the time it is the motor itself...not the plastic cog.

TunerMaxima3000

iTrader: (4)

No...... REALLY???

Way to bring back an old thread with a useless comment just to get your post count up.

gsandhu92

My Maximas seat wont move back n forth but everything else works fine. We checked the motor n it still has activity in it but it wont move. I tried holding the slide motor n it worked but it wasnt smooth n now i tried it again n it stopped worked. I dont know wat to do. HELP

Scottwax

iTrader: (8)

Have you done what is suggested in the first post? If not, then do it.

mplomondon311

Don't be a meathead, I'm trying to let people who might not know that it might be another issue, and furthermore, I couldn't care less how many posts I have bud. I'm not trying to acheive a following here I drive a normal car that I keep stock (because its a MAXIMA).

asdf1855

I looked at the TSB and compared it to the original post. I decided to do the TSB. It was very easy. Much easier than the original post, but I needed all of the extra motor 'stuff' in the original post that is not in the TSB. Also, I took care to clean out the commutator slots with an xacto knife. You remove the amature by just unscrewing it and lifting out. Also, if you go by the TSB and remove the seat it's much easier to realign the screw bars. Thanks again to the original poster.

Ls1danny

Same problem.

jeff607

They do sell the plastic cog. It fixed my 2 yr. broken seat. The dealership wanted $1100 to fix. It should have been $500 if you replace the motor and screw assembly. The plastic cog is $40 (pretty high for a 39 cent plastic part but is the cheapest option.

You can buy on amazon
Even has a utube to tell you how to fix. The tsb will also tell you how to pull the motor assembly but not how to change the gear. Took about 3 hrs. The hardest part was to disengage the motor so you can move the seat to a position to unbolt it from the car. You can find this the bolt which connects the screw to rail under the seat. Just take it off and the seat can be moved.