I'm sitting in my car (91 SE 5spd) and I lean back to get something out of my pocket and WHAM I'm horizontal!!! I guess the back of the seat could'nt take the pressure (6'3 220lbs). Has this happened to anyone?? What are my options here...can this seat be saved??

 

heh..lose some weight

 

There is a large flat coiled spring located on the lower left side of the seat, if you remove the plastic cover you'll see it. It looks sort of like a large snail shell. I bet it came loose. It's a good place to start looking anyway.

Hope this helps.

 

I also have a 91 5-spd. The same thing happened to me. If you try to lean the seat up does it move. On mine it was broken where the back attaches to the adjuster. The sheet metal was quite thin and tore right thru. I'm sure it took quite a long time to get to this point. Look on the left side of the seat where the back comes down to connect to the bottom. Lift the fabric up and you should see it. If it is torn apart I suppose it could be welded but there's not much to work with (I'm not a welder). I bought a set of power seats from a junkyard from a 92 SE so I got an upgraded set of seats out of the deal!

 

Time for some racing "rice" seats!!!!

 

BillRad, I feel your pain. Same thing happened to me. I am rather rotund and have to lean back into the seatback in order to buckle up. Couple of years ago, the seat finally gave out.

A metal brace inside the seatback had snapped in two. Dealer said they could try to weld it but cautioned that it would not be strong. Lucklily the dealer found a seat with the same material at an auto wreckers. Cost me about approx. $300 CDN. The fabric on the replacement seatback was kinda dirty, so they swapped in my original. No problems since.

Ted

 

Thanks for all the info guys, lots of good info on this BB.

After further review it appears a metal brace inside the seat back snapped on the left side. I agree...welding this, unless fabricated properly probably would'nt hold my fat ****. Anyone done this with any success? Is there a good source of used seats or do I just start checking the local junk yards. What other Nissan seats (my are not power)are compatable...Z seats fit??

 

The same thing happened to me. I'm a bigger person but my car went through a significant ($16000) crash and still was not totaled. The seat went out maybe 3 years later. I was able to purchase the frame from the local Nissan dealer for around $200. I then took it to an upholstry shop and had the seat reconstricted around the new frame. All in all, a painless process. The guy that did the work stated that he's seen the same thing of other makes of cars with drivers as small as 100 pounds.

Nontheless, I wouldn't waste time probing junk yards for this part because most of the cars in junk yards have been totaled when someone was driving to begin with, and could be weakened from the impact.

In the junk yards near me (NC) the junk dealers look at the Maxima's as being cash cows for them. They won't let you get anywhere near the cars since the 3rd generation had so many models sold, and some parts are interchangable with some 4th gen models. Same with the Honda Accord..

Happy hunting..