96 deville seat trim broken??...common problem?

3922 Views 5 Replies 4 Participants Last post by Kdirk, Oct 26, 2005

ocjmakaveli

Discussion Starter · Oct 24, 2005

The trim around both my front seats is broken primarily from where the center screw goes into the side of the seat, the plastic around the center screw completely broke off from the rest of the trim.

I bought the car this way and I recently tried jb weld to glue the plastic pieces together adn when i screwed it back on it held ok but when I sat on the seat the leather pushes outwards against the trim and caused it to break on the driver side.

on the pass. side it's holding ok at the moment

I know if i just replace the trim itll break because the leather pushes outwards when weight is on the seat.I'm wondering if maybe after 90,000 miles the seats are squished down enough that more leather is pushed outwards causing the trim to break.At the moment when someone sits it causes the seat to be at level with the side trim and i can see that just entering and exiting the vehicle would put weight on the trim causing it to break again.

Is there any fix or should I just have the seats reupholstered with firmer cushions and then replace the trim?

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ocjmakaveli

Discussion Starter · #5 · Oct 25, 2005

Kdirk said:
Very common problem on the 94-99 cars. I've replaced both of mine (they were surprisingly cheap from the dealer - about $25 a piece) and they have held just fine since then (over 20,000 miles on the car since I put the new ones one).

FWIW, these were redesigned in 1997 without the center screw on the side, they have a molded in "catch" and steel clip on the inside of the panel instead that latches into the seat frame.

I don't know if this reduced the rate of breakage or not, but there must have been some reason GM changed it and I figure it was due to the lack of long-term durability on the earlier cars becoming evident by the time the 97's were in the design phase.

Also, JB weld will not likely hold this in the long term due to the type of plastic it is, it's nearly impossible to get decent adhesion. Save yourself the headaches of ongoing disassembly and repair and and get the new trim.

KDirk

Thanks for the tip it's nice to know there new and improved I'll be buying the new ones for sure.

If you happen to remember the part # could you please post it?

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