I seem to have a short of some kind under the front seat of my 2001 XK8. I keep blowing fuses. Now the seat adjustment and the heater won't work. I was wondering if anyone could give me a step by step on how to remove the seat without the ability to move it forward or back?
Thanks, BobK

 

Sorry, you're going to have to move the seat forward and back, in order to get to the bolts that hold the rails to the car's frame. They are accessed 'between' the top and bottom rail, so you're going to have to figure a way to get it forward and back. You might have to put a larger fuse in (or bridge the fuse w/o protection, but this can cause permanent damage), and move it just enough to get both directions to work.

First, disconnect the front harness (no idea what it controls) that you can access w/o removing the seat. Then try the controls, does it blow the fuse? can you move it?

If you can get the harness pin IDs, you might be able to disconnect that harness, provide 12V power to the seat controls only... something like that

 

Matt's last suggestion is the only one I would try. Putting a larger fuse in will only result in letting the smoke out of the wires. Once the smoke escapes you have to get the Jaguar Smoke Recharge Kit to ever get it working again.

 

Thanks for your input. I was hoping there was a mechanical release of some sort. It would make sense from an engineering point of view. Well, the seat is at least stuck in a position that suits me so it should be O.K. until I want to sell the car. As for the heat in the seat, I live in the South now so it's not as much of an issue as when I lived in the North. Thanks again.

 

I was just thinking that there are times when a seat motor burns out. How does a Jaguar service department get the seat moved in order to replace the motor? Anyone know?

 

Lots of seat control module issues, and pinched wires and blown fuses but I don't think I have ever heard of a motor replacement.

You really can noodle out the connector/motor interface and jump ground and B+ to it to move the seat. I suspect an experienced technician would do just that to move the seat.

 

Thanks for your response. I don't really have the technical expertise to try bypassing the seat module and don't want to do any more damage. Besides, I might not be bypassing the short itself and might put current to an unprotected circuit. I guess it will have to go into the shop.