I was driving one day and my stock 2007 STi seat rail broke and now my seat tilts from side to side which is NOT safe, so I took it out and put in a V5 seat as a temporary fix. Do you think Subaru will fix this under warranty even though I removed it from the car? The reason I did is so I could drive the car to the dealer, otherwise it would have been to unsafe. Sort of a catch 22.

If not, I guess I can just put it back in, but it'd be so much easier the other way around.

The seats are almost brand new and I never did anything to harm them and I take good care of my car... I'm big, but not THAT big... 6'6 and around 240ish.

I have a Sparco EVO 2 sitting at GST waiting for some custom rails to be built for it so it works out since I'll have a new seat soon, but I kinda wanted to sell these STi seats when I replace them with the sparcos, but I can't with the rail being the way it is.

It looks like one of the rollers came undone on one corner of the seat which is making it unstable. I figure the seat is a safety device so they should fix it, right? Like a seatbelt that is faulty?

Any help is appreciated.

 

Let me also mention that I have the WORST luck with subaru safety gear, and Mike from GST can vouch for this, but I have had THREE defective seatbelt buckles (the female end), they all just broke and stopped accepting the male end of the seatbelt! Not just once, but THREE times! I had a faulty airbag replaced, and now my seat rail is broken!?

Luckily its stuff that I have noticed before driving, so I wasn't at harm, but still, pretty whack if you ask me.

Apparently I'm not alone with Subaru's shoddy seatbelts either!

 

I think your luck with subies is bad. Have you tried honda yet?

 

i had the same problem with my 06 sti... bringing it in to subaru tommorrow!

 

I have 2007 honda ex for sale with below 4k miles

 

You have the worst luck with Subaru's, period. lol

 

AHAHHA vouch seen this car in person

 

Cars have these cool things called "Warranty". Look into it

 

I know smart guy, the reason I'm asking is because the seat is no longer attached to the car, and I know how quick car makers are to say "Oh, sorry, you touched the part so your warranty is now void" Sometimes all you have to do is look at something wrong to have your warranty voided.

 

id say drive safely to subaru with the seat in because ive seen pretty lame excuses and it be on the spot and point "look see its broken from in the car"

I don't know how bad it is but if its safe enough i would do it that way.

 

I would try to drive it there with it installed if you feel safe enough because they will probably try to say you broke it taking it out or that you used it in another car or something.

 

I broke a seat rail attachment on my Recaro last week up in Idaho- no way was that going to be warranteed by anyone.

So I found a welding shop, stopped in and went to work removing the seat, found that a bolt had come loose, so we replaced that- put the seat back in to find it still was loose- took it back out to realize the piece that lost the bolt had also come unwelded, so he welded that back for me, I put the seat back in and found the weld bead was in the way of the slider so I couldn't set the seat far enough back for me to sit in my car.
So I got to remove the seat for a third time to have the weld ground down.

After I got it bolted back in I asked the guy what I owed him and he said "whatever man, you did all the hard work" and he was right- getting the seat out and back in is the labor intensive part, I'd hope a decent Subaru shop would be happy to fix yours since they don't have to mess with getting it out.

 

Yes, Subaru will fix it for free. Stop eating so much man, you know you need to stop when the seat rail breaks lol.

 

Put it back in your car and drive it to Subaru. You will have a better chance of getting it fixed that way.

Good Luck.

 

Pete,

Taking the seats out and putting them back in is a piece of cake with the stock seats, I can literally change a seat in 5 mins, maybe less if I hurried. It's 4 bolts, and that's it.


I had a Recaro Speed in my car (just like an SRD, but the newer model), that was just as easy as a stock seat, 4 bolts and you're done.

Now I have a Sparco EVO 2 and that is just as easy, 4 bolts.


It is however difficult to assemble new rails onto a new seat! For example, putting Recaro rails onto a fresh new virgin seat. First of all it comes with no instructions (and they do that on purpose so that a pro has to install it for liability reasons), and second it doesn't come with all the hardware to mount it into you car. I had to go out and buy 4 metric bolts to mount the slider to the actual seat, which then mounted onto the frame that held the seat down into the car's floor (large metal frame which is held on by the 4 stock bolts).

After you assemble the seat once, it should be cake to take it out and put it back in.

Do you have a custom rail system that doesn't use the stock holes or something?