986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners - View Single Post - Removing an electric seat that won't move and prevents you from getting to the mounts

Doug427 · 12-12-2018, 02:43 PM

I just bought a 987 that got a very small amount of water in it. Just enough to fry the rear body control module under the seat. What I will describe here is on a 987 (2005 Boxster S) but should in many ways be applicable to 986's too.

I had to get to the module under the seat, but the seat was almost all the way back and there was no possible way to get to the rear bolts to remove the seat. What I did was remove the front bolts and wedge something under the loose front of both sliders to get the seat as high up as possible.

My car has heated and memory electric seats, and as such has a black plastic seat memory module strapped to the underside of the seat cushion on the drivers side.

I took out the Phillips head mounting screw toward the center of the seat. The outboard one is impossible to remove with the seat in the car due to its location. Once I took out the screw I was able to swivel the box on it's remaining screw toward the center of the car. Once I did that I was able to remove the plugs on the back of the seat memory module box.

The plug you're looking for is the grey one.

All the + and - leads of the various seat motors go DIRECTLY to this plug. Apply power to the correct wire pairs in the plug and if the motor is workable, it WILL run. I took my 12v battery charger, and as advised by someone else on one of the forums, I took solid strand 18ga thermostat wire and tapped the ends somewhat flat with a hammer to semi-simulate the spade type connections that normally do in the plug. Don't go crazy with this, just flat enough to give the connector something to connect to. I connected the red and black wire to the appropriate alligator clip on the battery charger.

Here are the appropriate wire pairs in the plug:

- For the motor that controls forward/back movement of the seat - blue/green wire and blue/black wire.

- For the motor that controls the front of the seat going up and down - white/green wire and white/black wire.

- For the motor that controls the rear of the seat going up and down - yellow/black wire and yellow/green wire.

- For the motor that controls the seat back recline function - grey/green wire and grey/grey/black wire.

I plugged the flattened ends off the wires I "created" into the appropriate terminals on the plug opposite the correctly colored wires and turned on the battery charger. Nothing. I tapped the motor with the wooden handle of a hammer and PRESTO, it started moving. WRONG DIRECTION! I simply reversed the wires; I put the positive wire where I had the negative wire, and the negative wire in the terminal of the plug where I had the positive one, and PERFECT! The seat ran forward. I ran it forward until the rear bolts were accessible, took out the bolts and removed the seat. Now I was finally able to access the rear body module and the seat memory module underneath the seat.

I hope someone down the road finds this helpful, and thanks to all who so generously gave their advice.

12-12-2018, 02:43 PM	#1
Doug427 Registered User Join Date: Feb 2018 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 163	Removing an electric seat that won't move and prevents you from getting to the mounts I just bought a 987 that got a very small amount of water in it. Just enough to fry the rear body control module under the seat. What I will describe here is on a 987 (2005 Boxster S) but should in many ways be applicable to 986's too. I had to get to the module under the seat, but the seat was almost all the way back and there was no possible way to get to the rear bolts to remove the seat. What I did was remove the front bolts and wedge something under the loose front of both sliders to get the seat as high up as possible. My car has heated and memory electric seats, and as such has a black plastic seat memory module strapped to the underside of the seat cushion on the drivers side. I took out the Phillips head mounting screw toward the center of the seat. The outboard one is impossible to remove with the seat in the car due to its location. Once I took out the screw I was able to swivel the box on it's remaining screw toward the center of the car. Once I did that I was able to remove the plugs on the back of the seat memory module box. The plug you're looking for is the grey one. All the + and - leads of the various seat motors go DIRECTLY to this plug. Apply power to the correct wire pairs in the plug and if the motor is workable, it WILL run. I took my 12v battery charger, and as advised by someone else on one of the forums, I took solid strand 18ga thermostat wire and tapped the ends somewhat flat with a hammer to semi-simulate the spade type connections that normally do in the plug. Don't go crazy with this, just flat enough to give the connector something to connect to. I connected the red and black wire to the appropriate alligator clip on the battery charger. Here are the appropriate wire pairs in the plug: - For the motor that controls forward/back movement of the seat - blue/green wire and blue/black wire. - For the motor that controls the front of the seat going up and down - white/green wire and white/black wire. - For the motor that controls the rear of the seat going up and down - yellow/black wire and yellow/green wire. - For the motor that controls the seat back recline function - grey/green wire and grey/grey/black wire. I plugged the flattened ends off the wires I "created" into the appropriate terminals on the plug opposite the correctly colored wires and turned on the battery charger. Nothing. I tapped the motor with the wooden handle of a hammer and PRESTO, it started moving. WRONG DIRECTION! I simply reversed the wires; I put the positive wire where I had the negative wire, and the negative wire in the terminal of the plug where I had the positive one, and PERFECT! The seat ran forward. I ran it forward until the rear bolts were accessible, took out the bolts and removed the seat. Now I was finally able to access the rear body module and the seat memory module underneath the seat. I hope someone down the road finds this helpful, and thanks to all who so generously gave their advice. Last edited by Doug427; 12-12-2018 at 03:05 PM.