Passenger seat won't move either way
 

My 1989 Coupe passenger seat won't move forward or backward but I can hear the motor run. What should the steps be in troubleshooting?

I'm prepared to pull the seat and look at track and motor drive. Anyone done this before?

I can't offer too much on track troubleshooting, I'm lucky enough both of mine work. It takes almost nothing to pull the seat.

The bottom cushion is held in with a wire hook on the front you can easily see. Lift the back of the cushion, then pry the hook downward and back. A flathead can help, but really isn't needed. After that you should see 4 bolts holding the seat to the track. Remove those and the track is open and exposed, or you can take out the other 4 (I think) bolts and look at it more closely.

Hopefully somebody else can chime in with more troubleshooting

Pop seat bottom up so you can see power seat actuators. Check connections is a start.

If you hear the motor run but no movement, the gears or the "cage" that holds the gears in the seat transmission is most likely the issue. I have rebuilt track assemblies for $195 exchange. The seat shell is held to the track with 4 bolts. The track is held to the floor with 4 bolts. One electrical plug on the track assy. The plug should have flat pins inside. Earlier had round. Make sure that you check which you have since they are often changed or modified. Very easy fix that you can do yourself.

The fact that you hear the electric motor trying to move the seat means your Seat Track transmission most likely has failed. This is fairly common on the older C4's and easily fixable. I had the exact same situation on my 1988 C4.

Check out the seat movement switch (4-way) before taking the seat out. My seat movement switch was bad on my car and that might make you replace something like the seat track assembly only to find later on that it was the switch that had failed and caused the issue. Test it or swap a known working unit in and test the seat again. Then you remove the seat base from the car because you are sure what is bad.

You really have a choice here as it is possible to either replace with a rebuilt track or rebuild your own track. I bought a rebuilt track and now everything works like new. It is easy to get to UNLESS the seat base is frozen. Be sure to make the passenger seat's back lean forward exposing the rear bolts more readily. The bolts in front of the track were easy to get to but I had somebody try to move the seat with electrical power while I physically pulled it forward, this allowed me to see the rear bolts. If you are alone or concerned about damaging anything else you could just remove the base seat cushion to gain access to the rear mounting hardware.

Removing the seat cushions is easy but I did not have to do this to remove the track. Since you have to replace the track assembly on the base of the seat I left my seats together and just separated them from the base after I got the seat track off the floor. The passengers seat was a PIA but it was out in a few minutes and was bolted to a rebuilt track and re-installed after cleaning the carpets in my car. Be sure to lubricate everything well and check the wiring for any scrapes or shorts. On my car I found a bad ground on the passengers seat electrical connection so I cleaned the ground connections and got it back to 0.00 Vdc A bad ground can help damage the new seat track motors so it is important to verify the Battery voltage being supplied to the seat track.

After replacing the track on the passenger seat is when I found that my seat position switch was not functioning properly and had to be replaced for my seat to go forward and back on the new track. I tested the track before installation and it worked fine and after installation it was not fine all because the fancy four way switch had failed. I tested the seat using a POWERPROBE 4 and was able to get it to move back and forth and up and down but the switch would not allow it to go back and forth so I had to replace the switch as well.

Good Luck with your track issues and I hope they are solved easily!

I replaced my track with a rebuild and sent my core back. Very happy with the rebuilt one. I would not:cheers: try to fix this piece.