Help getting a back seat locked down

MPG Lover

MPG Lover

Member
After six months of ownership of my second A2, today I finally got round to lifting up the back seats to get that area vacuumed. I discovered my left back seat was not locked down (which might explain the higher amount of rattles in the back of this car). After vacuuming I was still not able to get the left rear seat locked down. For the record I have ensured that the holes are aligned; the spring loaded bolts seem to be working OK; and I even jumped up and down on the seat at one point to apply pressure. :mad: All I get is a metal hitting metal noise. Anybody got any suggestions? Thanks
 
Hi.When jumping is the seat snapped together or folded out?
When I changed upholstry on mine I got them out and even folded them out ( to sit on ) outside car. I cannot explain it better than to try and make pressure on it when folded flat with the spring bolts in place and at the same time grab handle at back a few times.

Good luck:)

Jossi
 
Jossi is right and this is a common problem. Place your knee on the seat itself and ensure that the release handle is fully released. It shouldn't require anything more than your own body weight.

Cheers,

Darren
 
Sounds like you have the same problem I did. I took both rear seats out of my car but when I refitted them neither of the bottom rears of the seats would sit flush on the car floor, despite the fact that the rear pins were lined up accurately over the holes in the floor.

A phonecall to Lincoln Audi sorted the problem pronto. Seems that it is very easy when the seats are removed from the car to cause the rear seat pins to lock as they would do when sitting on the car floor. This was confirmed by the fact that the ball bearings located in the sides of the retaining pins were visible above the circular metal sleeves on the seat pins and were locked solid. When unlocked, the ball bearings can be pressed into the seat pins.

Solution was to was to relocate the seat in the car and fold the seat back forward and down. Whilst applying downward pressure on the front of the seat back, pull the release handle at the back of the seat. This will cause the seat pin mechanism to unlock so that the rear of the seat can then fit flush with the boot floor. The seat back will only lift up to its vertical position if both of the rear seat pins have engaged fully in their respective holes in the boot floor and are locked (confirmed by each pin mechanism making a distinctive click).

It's a pity that the owner's manual doesn't explain this, particularly as it's very easy for novice A2 owners like me to cause this problem to occur.
 
Rear seat locked down/slightly bent

Hey guys,
I have a quite similar problem on my A2.
One of the rear seat pin is locked down, impossible to lift the seat using the back handle. I can feel one of the pin releases but the other is locked.

I also noticed the seat is slightly "bent" towards the middle of the car. I discovered this was the reason why i couldn't bring the backrest down (the pin was misaligned and therefore was not coming up to release the back rest).
The reason why the seat looks bent towards the middle is that the pin towards the middle seems to have gone through the car floor!:eek: i wonder how this happened... (i bought the car second hand but did not notice/check).
Thanks a lot for your help...

Alex
 
Thanks for your help guys, I leant on the seat and waggled the handle at the same time and it locked down. 50% of the creaks inside the cabin have now instantly disappeared as well!

So to all other lazy A2 owners like me, I would recommend pulling up the back of your rear seats because:

a) A surprising amount of dirt builds up under the seats which needs a good vacuum
b) You may discover that your rear seats are not locked down and you might solve a large part of your cabin creaks

Cheers :)
 
I finally unlocked my back seat last night, using the 'knee' trick! (while seat is folded down, apply knee pressure on the seat while pulling the handle).
I heard a click and the locked pin released.. sweeeet.
Now i have the same problem as MPG Lover, the seats won't lock down anymore!
Alanm, i read your post about the way to get the pins in a proper state before locking them down but it does not seem to work... i probably have to to try again but i managed to bring the back of the seat back up without having the pins locked... weird.
 
The 'knee' trick did it again... thanks alanm !
This time it helped locking the seats back in. While applying pressure with the knee when pulling the handle you can clearly hear 2 'clics' for both pins when they lock.
Thanks again for your help, i really thought the seats were broken. Really too bad the A2 user guide does not explain the procedure...

cheers
Alex
 
Isn't this place great?! I was cleaning the car out and found I had a dodgy rear seat. A quick kneel and a wrestle and all is back in order again.

Brilliant!

BB
 
Same Problem (See short thread 8 August)

I'm a fairly recent A2 Owner myself (about 6 weeks now) and hit exactly the same problem on 8th August. I posted a thread with photos and got a rapid and very helpful response from 'AlanA2'.

If the locking collar rides over the ball bearings so the seat won't latch down, you need to lean your weight on the seat back whilst pulling hard on the lifting handle as you try to lock it down. It felt like the handle was about to break but in my case doing this eventually freed the stuck pins.

Just for information the seat has an interlock which clamps cushion and backrest together so the seat can be lifted out 'flat' and this is connected to the locking pins and pull handle. It is possible for the mechanism to stick in limbo if the backrest is not locked forwards when you pull the handle to release the pins from the floor. When I now fold the seats forward I press the front edge of the backrest down hard to make sure it locks AS I PULL the release handle and I haven't had a problem since (touch wood!). This also needs far less effort on the release handle. I don't think the handbook explains this action very well.

Most people also know that when you are raising the backrest up again you need to push down on its front edge to release the interlock with a slight click. The backrest will then pop up easily.

Good design should be intuitive but this mechanism is a bit quirky if you aren't familiar with it. Still the Audi engineers managed to achieve a folding system that, in one action, does something that needs 3 separate ones in my wife's 2002 A-Class. And the A2 seats are considerably lighter if you do need to take them out completely. Once you have the knack it is a very good system

Hope this helps.

Brian
 
I would just like to add that I had a problem with my rear seat after removal, when I went to put them back one would not lock into the upright position, it was about 10mm from locking into one of the locking positions on the seat back. After removing the seat I noticed that one of the floor pins was not level i.e. one side you could see the ball bearing on the pin and not the other one - so I put the seat back into place and lowered the seat back down,clicked it back up and lo and behold a result!

Andy

1.4 Sport, Azure Blue, Open sky, 6 CD autochanger
 
I have a similiar problem with my bench seat and i've read the answer on here about 3 weeks ago, but i've searched the forums but can't find the post anywhere.

I put my bench seat down today so that i could fit a chest of drawers in.

I've got the seat to go back up but it's locked in position 1 and i can't get it to move to position 2 or fold flat again however hard i try to do it.

I'm at a loss to work out how to do it, can i take a screwdiver to the locking mechanism and try and free it that way or is there a more simple solution that i'm overlooking.

When i eventaully get it freed is there any maintenance i can do to make it less hassle next time, copper ease/vasolene on the hinges, a good squirt of Lubricant
 
I finally released my locked seat today. Really annoying once it happens. Actually mine has been locked since I got the car 1.5 years ago but I found the issue just half year back when I once would have needed the extra space. Found this thread soon after but didn't try fixing it right away because it was unconfortably cold working outside.
 
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