After the second visit back to the dealers with passenger seat rattle and a replaced seat tilt mechanism I now find myself cured of the dreaded rattle but only to find an annoying churping sound coming from the seat base every now and again !.

Can anyone on the list suggest where this noise is coming from and a possible fix etc. ? I seem to recall some time ago someone talking about the mounting bolts from the seat to the floorpan ?

I am reluctant to return to the dealers for a third time and would like to solve the problem myself. Any advice would be much appreciated, im sick of driving with the radio on loud to block out the blasted churping.(11/99)
It is the seat locator pins. I simply unbolted my seat wrapped some electrical tape and put them back no noise now.(11/99)
Is there any solution (short of removing the passenger seat!) to cure the rattle. (4/00)

1. fit a passenger!

2. I think it's the belt buckle on the hard top mounting .. try buckling up the belt .. if this works the solution is to fit Roadster panels without the hard top mounting.. (4/00)

It depends what the rattle is.

If it is the seat belt buckle rattling on the door pillar then there are two solutions. 1) Fasten the belt (even if there is nobody in the seat) 2) On my car (a late UK Spec MK1) there is a little slot cut into the plastic of the door pillar. This slot was made to fit the seat belt buckle in when the belt is not used. The is a slot on each side, so you can stop the driver's belt rattling when you are not using it as well ;)

However if it is the seat that rattles, then I have heard the problem is as follows. The seat is attached to the car by four bolts. There are also two pins that fit into holes in the car to locate the seat in the car before the bolts are fitted. It is these two pins that rattle against the car. The solution is to undo the four bolts and move the seat a fraction of an inch (or pad the pins with something). Then refit the bolts and hey presto. The rattle should be gone.

If you take the seat out, put it back and it still rattles, then let me know so I can leave the country. I have never taken a seat out, so this could be a fairy story. (4/00)
I had the same problem, when I drove my car open with no one in the passengerseat, it started to shake a little. (the upper part of the seat, the 'back area') I pushed the seat in the position so it leans on the carpet behind the seat, no more rattles, and now since a few months, I removed the seat completely, wow, I have lots of extra 'trunk' space now! (4/00)
Or you could fit those padded seat belt 'thingies' (you know, the things that are supposed to go across your shoulder when you're wearing the seat belt) - but fit them underneath the buckle. This of course means that the padded bit goes across your waist rather than your shoulder, but, when the seat belt is retracted the padded bit keeps the buckle away from the hard top mounts so it doesn't rattle. (Worked for me anyway!) (4/00)