How do you remove the OEM seat covers?

turbocharged798 · Jun 5, 2010

The rear seats in the 99.5 were getting pretty disgusting.

I was able to remove the rear seat bottom and pull the covers off. Threw them in the washer on a delicate cycle and they came out looking almost brand new!

Now I cannot figure out how the back cover comes off.

There is this plastic strip the clips into the metal clips, but it is almost impossible to remove without damaging something. Getting the cover around the latch is also impossible. How the heck does it come out? I am driving myself crazy trying to figure it out. The Bentley is useless when it comes to this. All it has is to how to remove the complete seat from the car.

Finally figured out how the covers come out of the headrests after a half an hour of fighting, yelling, and hurt fingers.

Thanks in advance.

turbocharged798 · Jul 2, 2010

Bump. Somebody out there must know the trick to it?

I would like to take the front seat covers off as well if I can figure out how they come off.

greengeeker · Jul 2, 2010

I know how to get the front seat covers off. There is a trick to doing it though. Does the rear cover have metal rods running in it that clip onto rods in the cushion? If that's the case I'll post some pictures.

turbocharged798 · Jul 2, 2010

Yep. That exactly what it had. The bottom seat part was pretty easy to take apart. There was one hog ring that I had to cut off, but it didn't seem to do much anyway.

It's the rear set backs that has me stumped.

Haven't even looked at the front seats yet.

greengeeker · Jul 3, 2010

This is the basic structure of the front seat (I can't take credit for the picture) but by your description it should be similar to the rear.

For step 1, just press the two sides of the plastic TOGETHER (towards each other) and they will unsnap.

For step 2. Undo the rear fabric tensioner (don't think this will be on the rear seats.

For step 3. There are rods spanning the width of the seat with a hook on either end. The trick I found for these guys was to use two screwdrivers placed at the red and green locations (see picture below). I would then pry the screwdrivers against one another to push the black vertical bar to the left such that the hook was free.

Notice that there are two different heights to the hooks...one being longer than the other. You'll want to unhook the shorter one first!

Unclip this one first.

Then do this one.

andytoomajian · Jul 29, 2010

greengeeker - thanks for your post!

any chance of the "to be continued" part of this? if possible, with a little more play by play commentary to accompany the photos? i've got some nasty stuff on my front seats and would really love to throw them in the wash!

anyhow, i'd love to see more if possible - thanks!

turbocharged798 · Jan 30, 2012

Bump, old thread, but I just did the seat bottoms on the 04 PD and it worked great as well. Just need to figure out how to do the back. I think I am going to take the entire seat backs out of the car and see if I can figure out how pull the covers off and wash them.

I should have mentioned in my original post that I have a front loader and would ONLY recommend machine washing the OEM seat covers with a front loader on a delicate setting. Top loader? Forget it and wash it by hand instead.

greengeeker · Jan 31, 2012

I can walk you through the removal of the seat back covers on the front seats but I've never tackled the back seats. I'd wager the internal attachments are similar.

turbocharged798 · Feb 1, 2012

I almost got the cover off except I cannot figure how the release handle comes off the metal frame. I am afraid of pulling too hard and breaking it but I don't see anything else holding it on.

greengeeker · Feb 1, 2012

I imagine they stay in place and the cover simply slides off around it. That's how the headrest posts work anyway.

turbocharged798 · Feb 1, 2012

greengeeker said:
I imagine they stay in place and the cover simply slides off around it. That's how the headrest posts work anyway.

Man, do I feel like an idiot. They slide right off from around the handle and head rest mounts.

Well, I have one off and in one piece! I guess the PO clearly was a smoker from the nice little burn hole in the seat cover. Debating whether or not to buy a new cover from VW. Gotta price one out.

Bora-chiara · Feb 24, 2013

I appreciate this thread. In November my wife and I slid off a slippery road on bad tires and hit a jersey barrier and blew the side 2 airbags. Another story, but now im to the point where I just need to sew up the passenger seat where the airbag blew the seam open. I just got in the door from taking my cover off to have an upholsterer sew it.

I found it very difficult to manipulate the grey rods off with those springs giving such tension and I figured out an easy way to get the springs off to then easily slide off the bent grey bars by hand!

From the inside of the seat facing out, I inserted a flathead screw driver through the spring to have it rest on the hook to the frame of the seat. A small amount of pressure easily unhooked the spring. With the springs off the rest of the job can be pretty much done by hand!

Thanks Greengeeker!

greengeeker · Feb 24, 2013

Glad it helped you out.

jmarchitect · Jun 6, 2013

Seat covers and airbags

Greengeeker,

Do these instructions cover front seats w/ side airbags? I have a 2003 with a hole in the driver seat back side bolster, and want to repair it, but I beleive it requires removal/replacement to do a good job. BTW, in the "step 1" description, you mention plastic, but I'm not sure what you're referring to, and in the first picture, what do the green and red lines indicate? Thanks.

greengeeker · Feb 10, 2017

andytoomajian said:
greengeeker - thanks for your post!

any chance of the "to be continued" part of this? if possible, with a little more play by play commentary to accompany the photos? i've got some nasty stuff on my front seats and would really love to throw them in the wash!

anyhow, i'd love to see more if possible - thanks!

went back and updated my post to include more information.

BobnOH · Feb 10, 2017

Nice!
for the search engines-
remove seat cover wash how to instruction pictures

JB05 · Feb 10, 2017

This past Summer or early Fall, I shampooed my cloth seat covers in tact using a sponge and some Tide. I rinsed with a wet cloth. They look a whole lot better as well as the head liner. The latter was very dirty.

UhOh · Mar 7, 2017

Any pointers on the most expeditious way to get at the thermistors? I've got some heated seats to go in my car (finally) and one of them has a thermistor problem. All I need to do is to expose the very back top end of the lower pad. Hoping that I can get away without having to remove a bunch of other pieces.

where2 · Mar 8, 2017

UhOh said:
Any pointers on the most expeditious way to get at the thermistors? I've got some heated seats to go in my car (finally) and one of them has a thermistor problem. All I need to do is to expose the very back top end of the lower pad. Hoping that I can get away without having to remove a bunch of other pieces.

Embarking at this from the back seat foot well, Tilt seat back forward, gently pull out the plastic tail inserted in the metal slot along the rear of the bottom seat cover. The corners may be bent down to lock it in place, but you can pry them up (gently) if necessary to get the plastic tail out. Then follow the wires to where they go through the foam from below.

UhOh · Mar 8, 2017

I'd thought that I'd read that but it just didn't seem very clear. With all the stuff that likes to break I was afraid to try and pry on that. Anyway, thanks for giving me some added courage!

UhOh · Apr 23, 2017

Posting a follow-up on my experience...

As noted, pulling the edges is as others explain.

To get the hooks detached, however, is a bit more of a pain. I discovered that using a paint can opener (with hook on the end) works really well to pull on the squarish loops of wires that are in the cushion part. At first I was attempting, unsuccessfully, to pull the cross wires (attached to the cover) off of those loops. I then just kind of held those cross pieces while I used the paint can opener's hook and pulled the metal loops toward the inside of the cushion, thereby allowing the cross pieces to gain enough slack to slip off the loops.

williamson42 · Apr 12, 2018

Sewing up a seat after the airbag has blown

Bora-chiara said:
I appreciate this thread. In November my wife and I slid off a slippery road on bad tires and hit a jersey barrier and blew the side 2 airbags. Another story, but now im to the point where I just need to sew up the passenger seat where the airbag blew the seam open. I just got in the door from taking my cover off to have an upholsterer sew it.

I found it very difficult to manipulate the grey rods off with those springs giving such tension and I figured out an easy way to get the springs off to then easily slide off the bent grey bars by hand!

From the inside of the seat facing out, I inserted a flathead screw driver through the spring to have it rest on the hook to the frame of the seat. A small amount of pressure easily unhooked the spring. With the springs off the rest of the job can be pretty much done by hand!

Thanks Greengeeker!

Is there any info out there on the proper way to sew up the seat after the side airbag has deployed? Do you have to use a special type of thread? I found some seat covers in my local junkyard that came from blown airbags. I want to sew them up and use them on my current seats (which still have functioning airbags.

Thanks!

STDOUBT · Sep 1, 2019

greengeeker said:
This is the basic structure of the front seat (I can't take credit for the picture) but by your description it should be similar to the rear.

For step 1, just press the two sides of the plastic TOGETHER (towards each other) and they will unsnap.

For step 2. Undo the rear fabric tensioner (don't think this will be on the rear seats.

For step 3. There are rods spanning the width of the seat with a hook on either end. The trick I found for these guys was to use two screwdrivers placed at the red and green locations (see picture below). I would then pry the screwdrivers against one another to push the black vertical bar to the left such that the hook was free.

Notice that there are two different heights to the hooks...one being longer than the other. You'll want to unhook the shorter one first!

Unclip this one first.

Then do this one.

This post seems to be missing the magic ingredient of pictures. Any chance of a re-upload?

How do you remove the OEM seat covers?

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