Morning Everyone,

I currently drive a 2003 Hyundai Elantra and I'm quite happy with it. It's been a good little car. Recently the seat adjuster on the driver’s seat (round little knob you turn to raise and lower the front portion of the seat) has broken. Now to be clear, the knob isn't broken. But rather underneath the seat the crescent shaped gear has broken loose from the bar that actually raises the seat. The knob now turns freely without actually doing anything at all.

It's kind of hard to explain. But if you look under your driver’s seat (if you have the same car as I do) the first crescent gear you come to on the right hand side. (Assuming your facing the seat from the direction of the steering wheel) is the one that has snapped off that front bar that runs across under the seat.

I called Hyundai who said the frame for the lower half of the seat (i.e. not the back of the seat or the cushion on the seat) would run me a rather large amount of money. I called the salvage yards around here and no one seems to have a 2003 Elantra on their lots. I was wondering if anyone has run across this particular part breaking or possibly knows where I might be able to find the frame for the lower part of the driver seat.

Thanks for any help provided and also thanks for reading all that.

can't the seat be removed and then welded?

BTW welcome to the forums :00000732:

That is a possibility, is it safe to just unplug the side impact airbag when taking the seat out? There appears to be two sets of wiring running underneath the seat. Having not dealt much with airbags I wasn’t sure if there are measures I should take when removing the seat. I'm not sure what spot welding costs but I would imagine it would be considerably less expensive than replacing the whole frame. I’ll look into that as an option as well.
Thanks for the welcome!

you must dis-connect the battery and wait five mins. before you unplug the air wiring harness

Thank you for that advice! I didn't know that. I was able to find a spot welder near here so I will take the seat out and get it repaired. I'll even document it and post it on here so you guys can see all the fun.

Alternately, you can drill out where the spot weld was and put a bolt and nut in there (if there's clearance).

Ok here's the part that broke. You can see the welded point. It's not perfect as apparently the gear wasn't correctly aligned so now it only has half the range it used too. But so far it's secure. Thanks for the help and suggestions!

(IMG:http://www.wraith-ops.com/images/random/slides/DSC06196.JPG)

(IMG:http://www.wraith-ops.com/images/random/slides/DSC06203.JPG)