I know this has been mentioned and I have done a search but really found nothing....so...

My 2002 L has about 5K miles on it and I have noticed that the left seat cushion bolster is flattening out and the metal frame in the seat can be felt rather easily beneath it. This side takes the most wear and tear as you get in and out of the truck and that is part of the problem. I am kinda mad though because the truck is new and I am sure within a year, the frame will be all the way through the foam. If I get this fixed at the dealer, do they just replace the seat or is there a permanant fix? If they replace the seat it will happen again so I am hoping for a fix. any input would be great

Tom

 

I had the same thing with my '01. The lower cushion and seat fabric was replaced under warranty, about a month and a half ago. I noticed last night that it's starting to do it again, so I'd say that the fix is not permanent, based on my experience.

 

There is no Ford fix for the seat. Ford won't even admit it's a problem, even though every truck is affected by it since 99.

The reason this happens, is because there is a thin metal bar thats part of the seat frame, under that section of seat. It's basically there to to give the side of the seat it's shape and support. The problem is that this thin bar, wears right through the foam, and then starts to wear the seat cover from the inside out. First it starts as a black line on the seat, then it will eventually cut through.

The only way to "fix" this, is to take apart the seat, get yourself some heater hose, or rubber matting, or anything similar that can be wrapped and taped around the bar. What you want to do is make that bar soft, and fat. Once modified, it will not cut through the foam anymore. Of course if yours is already cutting through and damaging the cover, the foam and cover need replacing. If your truck is new, or you are not showing signs yet of damage, do this as a precaution.

And be prepared to fight with some dealers on this as well. This seat cover is a $700 part and some dealers will not warrenty it because they feel it's "normal wear".

Hope this helps.

 

I have 13,000 miles on my '01 and have no abnormal seat wear. However, I always grab the Oh-***** handle and exit without rubbing across the seat in an attempt to prevent wear. Does this usually happen to heavy people? I weigh 175 lbs.

 

Thanks Lightning Tuner...

Mine is not through the foam yet so it may be able to be salvaged. What did you do to get the lower seat cover off? Is this a "pull the whole seat out" deal? Just curious.

Thanks,

Tom

 

I have a friend who owns a auto seat cover shop.

He took apart my seat and glued some burlap to the foam above where the metal bar is, and also wrapped the bar with some foam and tape.. Now at 37,000 miles I have not noticed the bar comming through the foam at all.

 

Please see my photo album for photos:

https://www.f150online.com/galleries...ew.cfm?num=926




I did a long write up on this many, many moons ago. Probably about March 2001. If you can find the thread, you'll see the light.

 

Had the same problem with my '99 at about the same mileage, and after about a year. This is warranty fix and not just normal wear and tear.

I found out where the Dealer gets his upholstery work done, got a Dealer Repair Order, and drove over to the upholstery shop for the fix. That way, I did not have some Dealer turkey abusing my truck.

The fix was to take the seats out, pull the cover up, but not off, and heavily reinforce with denser padding. My cover was still intact but close to being cut through.

According to the upholstery shop, who does numerous new car fixes for different makes, this is a common industry problem with some power seats. In order to save weigth, the manufacturers make the seat frame as light as possible. So you have a thin bolster bar pushing through inadequate padding.

By the way, even though the passenger seat was showing no wear, I got that repaired too. The service writer, who is a pretty good dude, just let the Repair Order cover both seats.

By the way, I weigh 225 lb. and I used the OS handle a lot when I started to notice the problem developing, and it only slowed down the damage.

 

will the seat covers come off relatively easy? or is it a pain to do? I just had the lower seat cover replaced on my 00 HD seat, different place rubbed through, but i'd like to stop this before it happens to the new seat if its relatively easy to do. If its a pain to get off, i probalby won't worry about it too much cuz the old seat cover didn't show any wear there in 22K miles. thanks

 

It's good to see some things never change.....I had the seat repaired on my 99 "L" and I was a bit disappointed to see that Ford has not re-designed the seat to alleviate the problem after four years of repeated complaints from owners.

 

I checked mine last week, and at 7,000 miles it too had almost come trough the foam. I re-glued it and put additional foam on the bar, but am skeptical this will last. Does anyone have the OE part number for the foam pad iteslf? (I may start from scratch.) Also, do we really need the wire? The seat should do just fine without it since the foam sits on the perimeter of the seat frame anyway.

 

Just over 11,000 miles on my L. My seat cover started showing wear at around 5,000. I weigh 220.

I hate the lack of quality with this thing.... It's such a shame. I REALLY felt like crap, when my parents stopped by last night. They wanted to show me their brand new Lexus RX300 'coach edition'... They paid $38k for it, and the quality is just spectacular.

Granted, it's nowhere NEAR as FAST as the Lightning is... But little things like that make me wish I had opted for the IS300.

(heck, not to mention, the dealership actually PAMPERED them while they were waiting!!)

 

Harley#356, I watched the guys repair my seats, and it did not look like they any problem getting the seat cover pulled off to the point they could repair the seat.

But these guys have been doing this kind of work for a long time.

It seemed they took a lot of time to repair the seats, and looked like they where using layers of padding and glueing it in.

The seat bolster area feels considerably firmer now. The repair is holding up just fine.

 

What a concept? People paying real money and getting real treatment...
A concept that FORD should teach some dealers !!!