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SUVs Nissan Murano Nissan Murano Power Seat Problem
91 messages, Last post on Dec 05, 2009 at 5:54 AM
You are in the Nissan Murano Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & tidester
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Nissan Murano 2005- seat anchor bracket broken. Dealer charged arm and leg to repair- said it was not covered. One would reasonably assume that the driver's seat would remain attached to the vehicle for the life of the vehicle- right?! How is it possible for NHTSA to find that this is not a safety issue when the driver of the car is in a seat that is no longer attached to the car due to a design/manufacturing flaw- shifting with every turn or bump. I could not pass inspection with the seat in its current condition- so the state says it is a safety issue- how does NHTSA not see this as an issue? What are they waiting for? someone to lose their life or become permanently disabled? I paid the money the dealer demanded to repair the bracket and hopefully keep my seat attached- the idea of my own ejection seat at the time of an accident is not one I want to try out. Nissan get your act together and do the right thing by all of us who purchased your product- you have a problem- now own up to it. |
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After my wife's Murano got the dreaded "seat lean", where the DSR corner of the seat was flopping around, I decided to do something about it today. I will be damned if I give another nickel to Klein Nissan in Maplewood MN (thieves I tell you!), I used the nice day to DIY fix my seat. I rate this a 3 out of 5 sodas (if you have mechanical skills, go for it!) What you need: -14mm socket, ratchet, and short extension -12mm combination wrench -10mm combination wrench -Regular flathead screwdriver, #2 phillips, and a small electronics flathead -Pair of needle nose pliers & vice grips -MIG welder (or someone who welds) -1" x 1" x 1/8" piece of angle iron (bare steel, ~ 1.5" long) -Grinder, file, wire wheel -carb cleaner & shop towels -Couple hours of your time Startup: -Move the seat all the way forward, and go open the DSR door. Use the regular flathead screwdriver to pop the two covers off the seat rails. Underneath, there is a bolt under each cover. With the 14mm socket, ratchet, and short extension (say 1" long), remove each bolt from the floorboard (they come out surprisingly easy) -Go to the DSF door, and move the seat all the way back. Remove covers and bolts as above. While you are here, pop the hood. -Go under the hood, and with the 10mm combination wrench, disconnect the negative (-) then the hot (+) wires to the battery. Go back the DSF compartment -Now with the DSF seat completely unbolted and the power disconnected, tilt the seat backwards. You will see three connectors visible on the front bottom rail: 2 white connectors going into a big plug, and a yellow connector more on the PS of the seat. Disconnect these three plugs by pushing down on the small pill (kinda like a pez tab) in the middle of the plug, and using the small electronics screwdriver to carefully pry the plug apart. These plugs come apart much easier than most connectors I have run across in cars, so don't pry super hard - you don't have the button down far enough. Once the plugs are disconnected, unhook the looms from the seat, and remove seat from the car - WARNING - the seat is deceptively heavy! -Drag the seat into a garage area with a large bench to work with (trust me, you will need it). Start disconnecting all the plugs under the seat, and use the needlenose pliers to push the acorn locks out of the holes (you will need to disconnect them all). -Now, remove all the plastic skirts, including the one with 2 phillips bolts on the DS, the switch panel on the DS, the round cover with a phillips on the PS, and the front panel. -Next, push the two acorn plugs out of the loom that goes under the back of the bottom cushion (you will be fishing these out, and the loom on the outside of the bracket (with the yellow air bag loom). At the same time, pop up all the plastic channels that holds the seat cover on, so the bottom seat cover is loose (keep the front connected, but undo the sides & rear) -On the sides where the back and bottom of the seat meet, there are two 14mm bolts (4 total). Unbolt these, and feed the two looms from the bottom out to clear the back. You will also have another plug to disconnect for the heated seats (if equipped). Now, the back and bottom are free from each other. -With your hand, feel up under the foam pad in the bottom, and you will find 4 studs with 12 mm nuts. These hold the seat bracket to the bottom. Remove these 4 nuts using a combination wrench. Now, the seat bracket mechanism is free, and there is no flammable foam nearby. -If you look at the DSR stud, the bracket holding it on is wicked thin and flimsey (I think that the metal was 1/8" thick, and there are 2 small pieces holding it together. With a flat file, clean up the break, and bevel the edges. You may have to use the vice grips to bend the end of the bracket (one tab was bent on mine). Once it is ground and lines up, clean with carb cleaner. -If you are not comfortable welding, bring this to your local welder. This is literally a 15 minute job, but he will probably charge you a minimum (like an hour). He should be less than $100 regardless. Or, read below & DIY: -Weld the two tabs back together on the bracket (look at it, and it is pretty straight forward what it looked like at one point in time). On my Miller 175, I used #3 & 50% feedrate (use the recommended power and feed for 1/8"). This metal melted very well, and made a good solid connection. But I didn't want to do this again, so I cut a 1" x 1" x 1/8" angle steel down to 1.5" long, and cut a notch in it. Then, I plated over the two tabs, filling over the factory hole that took away all the meat of the connection to begin with. I welded the outside edges, and flipped it over & welded inside the factory hole to give it a LOT of weld area. If needed, you may need to clearance the angle a little. -Once cool, put it all back together, reconnect the seat, bolt it in, reconnect the battery, and enjoy the $1,000 you just saved. Even if you bought a welder, it will still cost you less, and you would own a welder when it was all said & done. Took me a few hours today, but I was farting around (hey, it IS Sunday), ate some lunch, went to town, did some stuff at the farm, watched a little of the little league world series, and really didn't work very hard at it. If you actually got into it pretty fast and dedicated, I would say 1.5-2 hours would be reasonable.
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Replying to: themaddhatter (Aug 23, 2009 3:31 pm) Did you take any pics? The whole post would make a good CarSpace Guide.
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Replying to: themaddhatter (Aug 23, 2009 3:31 pm) Beats my solution - trading the piece of shit in after the 2nd time the seat back broke. everyone be on the look out for transmission issues at about 75K. Without warning, you lose all power. Simply turning the truck on and off resets whatever is happening. Unfortunately for us, the switch that is probably the culprit is approximately $4k worth of labor to get at it!!...Pick up the extended warranty if you still have the chance! Or swear off Nissan and get a Lexus / Toyota.... |
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Replying to: steve_ (Aug 23, 2009 4:25 pm) No, no pictures, but it was pretty straight forward. Only thing that was a little fuzzy above is describing the bracket & the angle I welded on. There are around 15 connections that have to be disconnected, there are 8 bolts, four Phillips screws, 4 nuts, and really that is it. I could probably draw it in CAD or GIMP faster than it would be to take the seat back out and take pics. And that bracket is pretty flimsy - Nissan must have used those 95 lb Japanese ladies as their ideal driver, because I was able to bend it into alignment with vice grips. Just stamped steel, with a couple stamped ribs in it. In fact, if you think of a capital "A", and fold that A at the horizontal, so that the legs of the A is a flat base and the remaining chevron shape is vertical, then take the top of the A (the point, and bend that flat, that is about the shape of the bracket. and the two smaller A legs (the vertical ones in that bent shape) are what snap - one was around 3/8" wide; the other maybe 3/4". So, you have ~ 0.14 inches2 supporting that corner of the seat, and it is supporting it with an off-centered load (not inline), so the actual load carrying capacity of that vertical is a much smaller value even more. Say the steel is 36ksi yield strength, so inline that would hold 5,000 lbs. I am sure that the engineer figured that is plenty. But, since it is offset, it is probably more like a few hundred, as the seat is sat on, the vertical force is being transmitted into that bracket as a moment arm (the tab is about 1" long & the offset is about 1", so it has a 45 degree load offset (drops it down say 3500 lbs), and it now in a bending mode. The tab isn't well supported, so it fatigues back & forth as the driver sits and wiggles in the seat (like a pop top being opened and closed) until the tab cracks. Probably the thin one first; then with the decreased area on the wider tab, it eventually yields as well. If the engineers wanted to, a new bracket that was stamped in a supportive shape could be made for probably around $1 more than what is there. But, why do it, when they can get $1,000 a pop out of customers coming back. That is the sort of stuff that irks me about most automotive engineering (think the corvair - $100 for a beefier sway bar and the thing wouldn't pick the front wheels up accelerating up a hill, losing all control. GM didn't feel that was worthwhile, and it took Ralph Nader bringing a national outcry over it for GM to do a damn thing about it). |
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Replying to: sparkz08 (Dec 13, 2008 7:31 am) |
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| Has any found out where to get the gear for the power seat on the driver side yet ?and has any one switch with the passenger side with no problems ? | |
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Replying to: skippy7024 (Apr 03, 2008 5:21 am)
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Replying to: steelflatroll (Oct 12, 2009 6:16 pm)
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Replying to: beresde (Oct 20, 2009 10:09 am) again thank you .... |
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