AQ9 Trans Am seats and support "air bladders"
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AQ9 Trans Am seats and support "air bladders"
How long are the support "air bladders" supposed to remain inflated?
My 2002 Trans Am has the RPO AQ9 front bucket leather seats (Siegler Style) with inflatable air "bladders" for lumbar support and side bolster support. Each front seat has a pair of buttons for inflating/deflating. The air pump is under the front passenger seat.
Anyway, for the driver's seat I can adjust the amount of air in the lumbar support area and it remains constant. But for the driver's sear after I adjust the amount of air in the side bolster area it slowly leaks out over the next 10 minutes. I don't know if this happens on the passenger side - I rarely sit there! I've had the car almost 1 year and I keep forgetting to post this question...
My question is if my seats have a problem or if my seats are normal. How well do other people's seats hold the air in these support areas? If my seats do indeed have a problem then is there an easy method to fix this? (Such as one end of an air hose is loose and needs to be pushed back on all the way?)
My 2002 Trans Am has the RPO AQ9 front bucket leather seats (Siegler Style) with inflatable air "bladders" for lumbar support and side bolster support. Each front seat has a pair of buttons for inflating/deflating. The air pump is under the front passenger seat.
Anyway, for the driver's seat I can adjust the amount of air in the lumbar support area and it remains constant. But for the driver's sear after I adjust the amount of air in the side bolster area it slowly leaks out over the next 10 minutes. I don't know if this happens on the passenger side - I rarely sit there! I've had the car almost 1 year and I keep forgetting to post this question...
My question is if my seats have a problem or if my seats are normal. How well do other people's seats hold the air in these support areas? If my seats do indeed have a problem then is there an easy method to fix this? (Such as one end of an air hose is loose and needs to be pushed back on all the way?)
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I haven't payed a whole lot of attention but mine will deflate from day to day. Though if I drive for several hours in one day I have no problem with them. Maybe If I put silicone on the connection for the air hoses under the seats maybe it will help. I've checked the connections before and they weren't as tight as they could be. But its never really bothered me.
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Thanks for the replies! It is good to know there is a problem with my system, probably with the connections the tubes are making. I'll take the back of the driver's seat off and check those connections to the air bladders. I can see the black air tubes under the driver's seat...!
So far the only thing that didn't look right with the driver's seat was underneath I found an aspirin, a Burger King receipt for a double Whopper purchased near the Texas/Arkansas border, and a small plastic bag with something like dead plants in it. These must be from the first owner...
So far the only thing that didn't look right with the driver's seat was underneath I found an aspirin, a Burger King receipt for a double Whopper purchased near the Texas/Arkansas border, and a small plastic bag with something like dead plants in it. These must be from the first owner...
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If there was junk under the seat, I'd definitely check the 2 hose connector under the seat....any of that debris could have loosened it. There is definitely a problem...mine hasn't deflated for the entire 10 months I have owned it.
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Originally Posted by RevGTO
Oh, the treasures one finds under and in seats! A bit of advice: lose the baggie with the plant material. Ok, dude?
Okay, I think I know what those dead plant things were and to be safe I took them out of the trash and flushed them down the toilet in the first flush, and then the plastic bag with a second flush. I've seen tobacco leaves "curing" in barns and they looked like big warped sheets. The stuff I found was not like that. Rather, it looked like curled up leaves in little clump things. I thought this stuff was supposed to look like a "hand" with a small palm and 7 or so long jagged "fingers." Oh well, it is gone now.
Back to the topic - it sounds like there is some sort of air leak with my car seats. There is a coupling under the driver's seat but I didn't feel any air leaking at that point. Next I'll take the lower rear plastic portion of the driver's seat off and check out the hose to bladder connections. If those connections are loose then I'll try gluing them with clear silicone caulk. After that I'll check out and probably glue the passenger side connections too. One of the plastic screw covers is missing so I have a good idea how to get started removing things.
Thanks for all the replies!
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First off, I can not believe that you found 'THAT' under your seats. That is just hilarious, and quite scary. Just think if you had your car randomly searched and they found that, 'UH no officer you have to believe me, it came with the car. I swear it was like that when I got it.' That would be a mighty funny one for the judge.
Anyway, back on topic. I dont have these seats in my Z so I dont really know if I am on the right track. But if the hoses for the bladder are all connecting directly to the side of the bladder maybe there is a rip. It might be possible that a small hole developed where the connection for the hose was attached to the bladder. I guess what I am picturing is something like a blow up nozzle on a rubber raft. Maybe rub some spit around the edges and see if it bubbles up. Just another path you might want to treck down to solve your problem.
Fry
Anyway, back on topic. I dont have these seats in my Z so I dont really know if I am on the right track. But if the hoses for the bladder are all connecting directly to the side of the bladder maybe there is a rip. It might be possible that a small hole developed where the connection for the hose was attached to the bladder. I guess what I am picturing is something like a blow up nozzle on a rubber raft. Maybe rub some spit around the edges and see if it bubbles up. Just another path you might want to treck down to solve your problem.
Fry
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Yes, I was going to put some really soapy water into a cereal bowl and apply it with my fingers to the connections to look for bubbles which would indicate a leak.
My car was a repo. The previous owner had fallen behind on their loan payments and didn't/couldn't work anything out with their lender. So after a while the repossession happened. I guess they showed up at the first owner's home or work with a second set of keys and drove away without contacting the owner again. Next the car went to an auction house and some car wholesaler bought it realizing the car was a "cream puff" with low mileage, no mods, and no signs of racing. They detailed the car, put in a new battery, installed new tires, changed the oil and oil filter, topped off the gasoline tank, made a second set of keys, bought and programmed a second key FOB, fixed the infamous pop-up headlight problem on one side, and put the car on eBay. In the eBay auction they simply wrote "Firebird." They didn't write important things such as "Trans Am" or "Ram Air" or "WS6" so the auction didn't stand out among the other auctions at the time. So I bid, nobody else bid against me, and I got it for the opening bid. The first owner tinted the windows and left a few things in this car because the reposession must have been a surprise. There were some car things in the glove box, a shoulder strap pad thing, the stuff under the seat. But the front license plate filler panel and the T-top inside panels were not in the car at the time so I don't have those. Oh yeah, the WS6 emblem from the rear was missing too.
The bag under the seat was scary. I don't do those things, never have, and never will. I don't care if others want to - that is their business and not mine and as long as it does not impact me in a negative way then I don't really care what other people do. Anyway I work on a military base and sometimes they have dogs sniffing cars for bombs and stuff. Who knows what would have happened if they found this before I did...? Now I want to thoroughly inspect and sanitize the inside of my car the same way Len Bias' buddies cleaned up that dorm room back in June 1986...
My car was a repo. The previous owner had fallen behind on their loan payments and didn't/couldn't work anything out with their lender. So after a while the repossession happened. I guess they showed up at the first owner's home or work with a second set of keys and drove away without contacting the owner again. Next the car went to an auction house and some car wholesaler bought it realizing the car was a "cream puff" with low mileage, no mods, and no signs of racing. They detailed the car, put in a new battery, installed new tires, changed the oil and oil filter, topped off the gasoline tank, made a second set of keys, bought and programmed a second key FOB, fixed the infamous pop-up headlight problem on one side, and put the car on eBay. In the eBay auction they simply wrote "Firebird." They didn't write important things such as "Trans Am" or "Ram Air" or "WS6" so the auction didn't stand out among the other auctions at the time. So I bid, nobody else bid against me, and I got it for the opening bid. The first owner tinted the windows and left a few things in this car because the reposession must have been a surprise. There were some car things in the glove box, a shoulder strap pad thing, the stuff under the seat. But the front license plate filler panel and the T-top inside panels were not in the car at the time so I don't have those. Oh yeah, the WS6 emblem from the rear was missing too.
The bag under the seat was scary. I don't do those things, never have, and never will. I don't care if others want to - that is their business and not mine and as long as it does not impact me in a negative way then I don't really care what other people do. Anyway I work on a military base and sometimes they have dogs sniffing cars for bombs and stuff. Who knows what would have happened if they found this before I did...? Now I want to thoroughly inspect and sanitize the inside of my car the same way Len Bias' buddies cleaned up that dorm room back in June 1986...
Last edited by David 2002 WS6; 09-29-2004 at 09:03 AM.
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Originally Posted by frey51
First off, I can not believe that you found 'THAT' under your seats. That is just hilarious, and quite scary. Just think if you had your car randomly searched and they found that, 'UH no officer you have to believe me, it came with the car. I swear it was like that when I got it.' That would be a mighty funny one for the judge.