Hiya guys, just a quick reference for you all, regards Recaro seats in the A3/S3. Just had a good day, spent 6 hrs figuring out the best way to take out the Recaro seat to replace the switching unit in the side panel-drivers side. Wouldn't believe the hassle involved to get to it, had to strip it down to nuts and bolts to get it! First, disconnect the battery earth cable. You're messing with airbags, so take care. To remove.....push seat as far back as it goes. Undo electrical connections underneath.
There's 3 of them, and they're all underneath the metal plate underneath the seat frame, coloured yellow, green and red. Little bit fiddly, but all pull out (with a screwdriver to lever up plastic release) towards the front of the car. Careful with the yellow - it's the airbag circuit, hence disconnecting the battery first! Undo the two bolts right at the front of the seat frame - they hold the entire seat to the chassis. Push seat all the way forward and look at the channel the seat runners are fitted in.
At the back of these channels are two innocuous (sp!?) looking black plastic covers. The one on the door panel side has a little plastic cover you lever off to reveal a cross-head bolt - take this out and the panel comes out relatively simply. On the transmission tunnel side, it's a bit trickier to work out! Grab the entire unit, and force towards the back of the car....gently 'encourage with a screwdriver if need be...and it pops out! It does eventually, believe! Set the seat back so's you can climb behind the wheel, then without pulling up the seat adjust lever, push the whole seat back.
This frees the rear runners of the seat. The door side takes a bit of levering past the bottom of the seatbelt restraint (silver bar....screwdriver again!). The only thing holding the seat in is the little runner at the bottom of the seatbelt clip on the tunnel side! Grab the seat and waggle around....it pops out quite easily in the end. Goes back in the same way....the only issue being the seatbelt runner, but present it to the slot, and lever it into somewhere close, wiggle the whole seat, and fingers crossed, the ****** thing just pops back in!
Everything else is easy on the re-fit. I've been a mechanic for coming up 15 years, and it took me f**king forever to figure the ******* out! Once I'd figured it out, I reckon you can pop the seat out in 15 mins! Took me nearly 3 hrs, so thought I'd post the step by step! Careful when reconnecting the airbag circuit, and make sure nobody's in the car when you reconnect the battery! Sweet!
There's 3 of them, and they're all underneath the metal plate underneath the seat frame, coloured yellow, green and red. Little bit fiddly, but all pull out (with a screwdriver to lever up plastic release) towards the front of the car. Careful with the yellow - it's the airbag circuit, hence disconnecting the battery first! Undo the two bolts right at the front of the seat frame - they hold the entire seat to the chassis. Push seat all the way forward and look at the channel the seat runners are fitted in.
At the back of these channels are two innocuous (sp!?) looking black plastic covers. The one on the door panel side has a little plastic cover you lever off to reveal a cross-head bolt - take this out and the panel comes out relatively simply. On the transmission tunnel side, it's a bit trickier to work out! Grab the entire unit, and force towards the back of the car....gently 'encourage with a screwdriver if need be...and it pops out! It does eventually, believe! Set the seat back so's you can climb behind the wheel, then without pulling up the seat adjust lever, push the whole seat back.
This frees the rear runners of the seat. The door side takes a bit of levering past the bottom of the seatbelt restraint (silver bar....screwdriver again!). The only thing holding the seat in is the little runner at the bottom of the seatbelt clip on the tunnel side! Grab the seat and waggle around....it pops out quite easily in the end. Goes back in the same way....the only issue being the seatbelt runner, but present it to the slot, and lever it into somewhere close, wiggle the whole seat, and fingers crossed, the ****** thing just pops back in!
Everything else is easy on the re-fit. I've been a mechanic for coming up 15 years, and it took me f**king forever to figure the ******* out! Once I'd figured it out, I reckon you can pop the seat out in 15 mins! Took me nearly 3 hrs, so thought I'd post the step by step! Careful when reconnecting the airbag circuit, and make sure nobody's in the car when you reconnect the battery! Sweet!
