How to completely remove rear seats

[vRSAnt]

How to completely remove rear seats on the O3

 

Difficulty 2-3/5 - harder than it looks and clearly not easily designed to be removed -

( shame on you Skoda get with the 21st Century already ! Cars of the Citroen dogger/serial killer wagons type having been allowing easy seat removal for years )

The seats on Octy though to fold pretty flat, so I imagine maybe they don't expect it and not encouraging people to easily change their seats or clean them....

 

So;

Seat bench:

 

This is much easer than it looks though had me temporarily baffled as a mission impossible.

Forgot this part, Step 1 is to reach the front bench edge and lift firmly upwards as there are D shaped brackets that keep the seat firmly down.

Next simply remove the iso fix front covers, then you can sort of slide out the iso fix plastic surrounds altoghether ( look carefully they have a route for the cable to fee out the plastic, each). This allow the seamingly unmoveable covers due to those adapters in place, to now pull forward.

Now its possible to justslid the rear bench towards the front (not lifting up) as it has a sort of slide near the middle, and its freed and can be removed from the car.

 

Seat backs: More difficult.

 

Fold down both seats right down. and in the split that is quite tight between the 2 sections there is a flimsy plastic cover. its barely possible to access and will likely break, but it sort of folds on itself so should unclip. To be honest I'd be tempted to throw the crap cover away but I refitted mine with some carbon tape over it.

The cover surrounds a L shape bracket that is held in place by small spline socket bit, that is typically in most toolkits. ( there is also something in the rear boot as a special driver, I think might be worth checking? I was surpised VW gave away this special tool in the boot rather than screwdriver, must be a reason).

Unscrew the spline with the correct spline bit. Sorry didn't check size but it should be fairly common one as its small.

 

Now both seats will free to be removed from their central mount which then allows lateral movement on the far sides to release.

They can then be pulled free sideways from their side mountings but be aware will still be attached to remote release cables and on the bigger section, to the seat belt mount and sensor cable to check seat is plugged in (don't damage it!)

 

Now, freeing the rear remote cable - you could either do this as step one by getting assistant to hold lever, or after but it makes no odds.

Remove the plastic cover from sides of the seats which feed into seat.

Get some kind of driver in there to keep the sprung lever down. with another tool like small driver, hook the cable out the recess so its freed, a little tricky.

Now, pull the cable out of its recess.

Now feed the cable out its routing from seat.

 

Now unscrew the seat belt mount on larger rear back, its about 20 size socket IIRC correctly, its quite big.

The wiring connector should be first freed from its mounting ( compress to release). You can then see that this unslides from the wiring connector and the 2 part connection itself can be lightly seperated by lifting the small tab lightly to seperate the male part.

 

Thats it - your seats are free !

 

Haven't done fronts yet but look pretty conventional seats and compatively dreamy to remove, I'd expect typical spline to remove back 2 with seat full forwards, then slide seat back, the last 2, then disconnect wiring, job done.

 

Probably worth battery off for seat connections for airbags etc.

Edited 25 July, 2017 by vRSAnt

[Eltezz]

Why did you remove them? Just out of interest...

[vRSAnt]

Got slightly better looking/ condition 2nd set of seats I wanted to fit, that it all

 

But useful to know how to remove your seats for all sorts of reasons, having easily ( just) removed the Fabias rears for better space, I thought it would be easy.

I was mistaken. So just sharing for others as I'm surprised I couldn't find anything in owners manual, guides online, etc

Edited 25 July, 2017 by vRSAnt

[Eltezz]

No, good call. You can bet somebody will search for how to remove seats at some point and find your post. I am guessing the fronts will be a doddle to get out.

[gm73]

Thanks for this.  I needed to remove the rear bench to fit seat covers. On the mk1 it was possible just to pull it out but the isofix causes problems in the mk3. 

[JohnnyType2]

On 25/07/2017 at 20:36, vRSAnt said:

always wondered what the 'H' this cover was for when i found it lying on the rear floor. 

Edited 30 August, 2018 by JohnnyType2

[JohnnyType2]

whats the sapce like under the seats? room for a small amp or three?

 

[bjs369]

Hi there, thanks for this information, you gave me the courage to tug on the seat base hard enought to lift it!  However, I'm stll struggling with the ISO fixings - front cover no problem, but I felt all round and under the main iso housing but cannot feel any wire(s) (or anything else) to release the housing. I can see it needs to come out at an angle, but it is rock solid.  Am I missing something here or just being thick? Don't suppose  you have a photo of that step by any chance?