In as much that Dan the Man & myself have agreed to swap his leather seats for my vRS ones, somewhere on a wind swept motorway carpark, between Blackpool & Oswestry, herein lies the problem.

 

In preparation for the proposed swap, I thought I would do a dry run, to see what was involved. So armed with my trusty RAF toolkit, replete with Whitworth & AF spanners, I attempted to remove the front seats. First problem. The seats are held in place by Torx set screws (whatever they are?) Not having the required Torx bits off I goes to Halfords to buy some - best part of 20 quid!

On the drivers side, 3 screws removed no problem, but one would not budge. Soaked it in WD40, left it for half an hour, had another go. Still would not budge. End result - the screw head is all chewed up, & the Torx bit just spins round with no grip. I mention the problem to an engineering savvy mate of mine, who says I will have to remove it with some screw extractors. Off I goes to Screwfix for the said screw extractors & some titanium coated drill bits (another 30 quid!). Commences to drill a hole in the the Torx screw, starting off with a 2.5mm drill bit, which promptly snaps.Similar story with a 3mm & 4mm drill bit. I end up drilling with a 5mm drill bit, without the drill bit snapping. Then I insert the screw extractor, & turn the square end with my adjustable spanner. Still will not budge!!!

I'm now left with a screw extractor stuck in the Torx screw. To make matters worse (if at all possible), the square end on the screw extractor is now rounded off, so I can't get a grip on that now. HELP, - anybody?

 

Problem number 2. Front passenger seat removed no problem, but there  is an electrical cable that comes up out of the floor & disappears into the bowels of the seat. The seats aren't electric or heated, so what is the cable for? Completely nonplussed!!. But it raises the question  am I going to run into compatibility problems with swapping my seats for Dan's? Is it something to do with the airbags, maybe? And if so will that cause problems with the CANBUS if the seats are swapped.

 

PROBLEMS, PROBLEMS, PROBLEMS. Why is nothing in life so simple?

Answers please on a postcard

 

Anybody that can offer some advice on removing the screw extractor or suggest what the electrical cable is, please.

The wire will be for an airbag or seatbelt pre-tensioner.

 

Odd that one is jammed so hard.

Every Skoda seat I've taken out has been really easy.  They are not generally done up very tight.

Can't really give advise regarding the removal of the stuck torx screw - as for the seat as BFox said the cable is there for the seat's airbag or cushion sensor for the seatbelt.

lol.l. ANOTHER vRS 2 with leather seatst?! I CANNOT help!!!! (mine was the first! :p )

 

this is mine

 

 

 

 

firstly what are the seats you are getting? these are seat cupra seats..... here are how mine worked...

 

1) there are TWO electrical connectors underneath.... 1 that fits a big one, and thats the airbags... on the drivers side there is another thats the seatbelt detector.... this has different runners and needs the little plastic "guide" shaved off with a stanly knife to fit... then all wired up correctly!

 

2) the front seat (rear runner)  bolts connected nearest the centre of the car.... the '"SEAT" seat base is slightly different to the skoda one, and this bolt will not go all the way down... dont try to tighten it all the way down, you will kill the bolt... just tighten it as far as you reasonably can without killing the bolt and its fine! its still held in properly....

 

3) If you are taking "SEAT" leather seats out of another skoda fabia, this bolt may have been over tightened, hence your problem.... check out my build thread (Phantom) in the fabia section for a few more pics ect ...

 

cant help with how to remove the bolt... maybe weld a nut on top of it then a normal wrench ?

lol.l. ANOTHER vRS 2 with leather seatst?! I CANNOT help!!!! (mine was the first! :p )

 

this is mine

 

 

 

 

firstly what are the seats you are getting? these are seat cupra seats..... here are how mine worked...

 

1) there are TWO electrical connectors underneath.... 1 that fits a big one, and thats the airbags... on the drivers side there is another thats the seatbelt detector.... this has different runners and needs the little plastic "guide" shaved off with a stanly knife to fit... then all wired up correctly!

 

2) the front seat (rear runner)  bolts connected nearest the centre of the car.... the '"SEAT" seat base is slightly different to the skoda one, and this bolt will not go all the way down... dont try to tighten it all the way down, you will kill the bolt... just tighten it as far as you reasonably can without killing the bolt and its fine! its still held in properly....

 

3) If you are taking "SEAT" leather seats out of another skoda fabia, this bolt may have been over tightened, hence your problem.... check out my build thread (Phantom) in the fabia section for a few more pics ect ...

 

cant help with how to remove the bolt... maybe weld a nut on top of it then a normal wrench ?

 

Thanks for your help. The leather seats are coming out of a Seat Cupra & going in to a Fabia 2 vRS. Seems it's going to be a lot more trouble than I thought.

A fine mess I've got myself into!

Could have been worse. Could have turned up on the day  (round trip of say 200 miles) & still be in the mess I am now.

Swap cars have done with it...LOL

Thanks for your help. The leather seats are coming out of a Seat Cupra & going in to a Fabia 2 vRS. Seems it's going to be a lot more trouble than I thought.

A fine mess I've got myself into!

Could have been worse. Could have turned up on the day  (round trip of say 200 miles) & still be in the mess I am now.

same as mine then, mine were bryans, out of a seat cupra very nice seats too, suit the vRS well

 

note: there is only one wire passenger side for the airbags, as only a seatbelt sensor on the drivers side..

 

additional: make sure the battery has been disconnected on both cars for at least ten minutes so you don't risk setting off the airbags

 

took us about 2 hours, but I did clean them inbetween time

took us about 2 hours, but I did clean them inbetween time

 

From the snap you took of your car the other day, I can only imagine cleaning the interior of your car was 1h50mins of that

 

 

 

Sorry Dave

lol.. If you want my address, and want to get rid of some of your (EXCESS) cleaning equipment, you are welcome to come round

Sure they are not spline bolts? Not torx bolts?

Sure they are not spline bolts? Not torx bolts?

Yeah. That's exactly what they are! Fat lot the guy at Halfords knows. It was he that told me they were Torx, & then sold me the bits. Me? I don't know my arse from my elbow. May I could sue Halfords for the consequential damage. So far it's cost me 50 quid, that's without what my local garage is going to charge for getting the bolt out! And that just gets me back to square one.

Whoever said a little knowledge is dangerous is wrong. It's bloody expensive.

they are splines.... you can turn them with torx if you are careful....