I bought my car from a 250 lb. guy at 40k miles. My driver's seat sags to the left, and when I get into the car I hear a clicking noise. If I jostle about in the seat I can make it click repeatedly.

I have read posts that say that if the seat is re-upholstered and hog rings replaced, this will fix the problem.

So, I took it to the local auto upholstery shop. The tech thought that the seat frame rivets were the problem, and that I needed a new seat frame. He said that I needed to get a seat frame from a salvage yard.

I'm not sure about all of this...it seems that I should be able to take it to an upholstery guru and have it made better than new. At any rate, I want to get an opinion from somebody that really knows these seats. Does anyone know of a great upholstery shop near Annapolis, MD?

Andy

 

changing the skins on the seat will do nothing,you will have to replace or repair the seat frame.you could check a salvage yard or ebay for a whole seat.

 

Some heavier and/or older persons tend to "plop" into the driver's seat and push off the side of the seat when exiting the car. Both of these actions can cause problems with the seat frame. (It's often worse in low cars. Some C5 Corvette owners had this manifest itself in the "rocking seat" syndrome.) I suspect the age and weight of LS owners are both above average.

 

Thanks, guys...I wanted to sanity check this. So, is it only salvage or are there "new" frames that can be bought?
Andy

 

You can definitely still get new seat frames. My drivers seat pad was kind of loose where if you put pressure on the front it would 'move' a bit. I found that standing next to the chair and putting a hand on both the front and also rear edge (butt) of the seat pad I could make it wiggle.

Seemed like a simple case of some loose bolts or something - the car was 5.5 years old at the time. My dealer looked at it and then spoke with Lexus about pulling it apart to attempt to fix. Lexus refused and advised this is not a serviceable part and the bottom part of the entire seat would need to be replaced, period.

So the bottom of the seat and frame were replaced. My original leather was then put over the new seat and it's all fine now. Total cost was around $2K for the parts alone, labor was on top of that. So new parts definitely still are available and I'm happy.