EYEL1NER

**LONG POST WARNING, TL;DR VERSION AT THE BOTTOM**
Hey all. I've got a problem here that has me pretty heated right now and I haven't really decided how to proceed with it so I figured I'd see if anyone had any insight into my problem or advice regarding it. My driver-side seat in my 2014 2LTZ has an intermittent problem where it refuses to lower. That is to say that pressing down on the rear portion of the main power seat button (not the seat back control but the horizontal bar that controls forward/backward/seat front up/seat front down/seat back up/seat back down) won't do anything when the seat is in the highest position.

The issues pops up quite a bit for me because I'm pretty tall and my wife is not. So when I drive the car, that portion of the seat is lowered as much as it can go. When my wife drives, she raises the front and rear portion of the seat to the highest position. Every now and then after she has driven the car though, it won't go back down. I'll press down on the button and it just makes a single click. Then if I am to raise that button, it makes a click and there is an almost imperceptible judder or movement of the seat, as if it is hitting the end of whatever track it is on. What I have to do to eventually get it to lower is fiddle with the seat and with it in multiple difference positions forward and back, keep toggling the button up>down>up>down>up and so on until it finally lowers. Sometimes this can take only a minute or two, sometimes it takes enough time that I give up and just try to drive it as it is. As big of a dude as I am, driving it in that position is physically uncomfortable, borderline painful. The steering wheel when raised all the way up still jams into my thighs, so I have to find some kind of position where the wheel is up but all the way in or out, and the seat is super-far away from the wheel, and then the seat front is lowered all the way, and the seat back is reclined an absurd amount. Even then I have to try to slouch down or else my head is touching the roof. Sometimes this is just a once out-of-the-blue problem that pops up but others it will be something I have to deal with several times in a week (or at rare times several times in a day).

So there's what the problem I am having is. Definitely something that should be fixed. Well over the years starting when I got the car in the latter half of 2013 I have taken it to the dealership multiple times. There have been a number of times, too many to remember, where I call and explain the problem and be told to bring it in. Upon arriving the seat would decide to lower when they would try it and they would tell me "Well we can't troubleshoot a problem that isn't presenting itself right now, so please bring it back whenever it starts acting up again." Or the problem would clear up before the appointment, I'd take it in anyway (because the problem still exists whether it is presenting at the time or not), and be told to return when it happened next. There have been a couple times that I took it in and the problem had persisted long enough for them to see it. I want to say that it was two times they actually did maintenance on it, maybe three. I see one specific time showing in my Owner Center on the Chevy site, the last time I took it to them in early 2016. The times they worked on it were marred with inconveniences though, from delays in the part they thought they needed to replace being shipped, to the wrong part being sent, to the part they were waiting on being broken upon arrival. I want to say they replaced the whole wiring harness or maybe some kind of seat harness under the seat at one point? I cannot remember exactly what they have done and what they have checked; I only know that the issue has never been fixed.

Over the summer I called the dealership and was wanting to speak to a manager regarding my frustration with the issue; I had spent too long trying to get the seat working before going to work that day and wound up being late as a result. Obviously that got me more upset over the whole situation, despite it still being ultimately my fault and not the fault of my seat that I was late; I had a "Oh, so now my car is going to **** with my livelihood?" mentality about it. There was not a manager available at the time and I ultimately spoke with someone in the service department. I was angry but am usually pretty passive and avoid confrontation, so I maintained a cool composure while talking to him and don't believe that I came off as rude. I explained the issue and my frustration with both the malfunctioning seat and that I believed my warranty had just expired (I mean, this is an issue they've told me they took care of multiple times and it had never actually been fixed, so I don't believe I should be on the hook for paying out-of-pocked for them to inspect and try to fix it again, especially with no assurance that they'll get it right this time. Not that I said it like that, though). The service guy looked my car up and said he showed that they had done work on it for this issue two or three times, I do not recall which it was. He then told me he could take a look at it but that he couldn't say what would happen as far as me having to pay to get it fixed or some kind of courtesy repair being authorized without knowing first what the problem was and then maybe having to submit it for approval. The earliest he told me that I could bring it in was at least a week away from that date though, which is not what I was wanting to hear after explaining that I was late to work that day because of it. The seat began working the next day though, I was frustrated over the multiple repairs that didn't work, I wasn't confident that they'd do anything for me or actually fix it, and I also worked during the day at that time, so I didn't bother taking it in.

With me writing this post out, it must be obvious to any of you reading it that the issue has popped up again. I've spoken with coworkers who are pretty knowledgeable about cars and have more experience owning more cars than I have about the issue throughout this year. An hour ago when I arrived at work angry that it had happened again (and fiddling with it for ten minutes didn't work, so I had to drive it as it was) had me start looking up TSBs and while I couldn't find one about this issue, I did find a page talking about this very issue in a number of GM cars and a fix action: https://gm.oemdtc.com/5736/driver-an...-chevrolet-gmc He also recommended I not take the car into the dealership that I had been going to (a Chevy dealer) but to take it to the service center of the GMC dealership next door. He told me that he has had good experiences with the shop there and had heard nothing but horror stories from the one I had been going to (I've actually had a lot of people warn me away from getting work done at my dealership in the past but I figured after getting the car that I'd just take it to the same place I bought it when I needed stuff done and didn't entertain the idea of going anywhere else). He said that it might be worth taking the car back to original location but with a printout of the info from that link I posted above and continue to elevate it to the service department manager and dealership management if I didn't get anywhere or if I was told that I'd have to pay for it to be fixed.

I'm still not entirely sure what to do about it. As I mentioned earlier in reference to my phone call with the service tech, I don't like making waves so pressing the issue at the dealership might not be for me. I'm pretty tempted to just straight-up file a complaint with GM over it (that's a lot more passive-aggressive and more my speed) but I can't imagine that'll make anyone at the dealership want to work with me over it. If any of you have advice regarding that, or definitely if you have any experience with this problem with the seat, I'd be greatly interested in hearing it. When I leave work in the morning, if I can't get it to work I might take it in tomorrow though (I've missed a lot of sleep recently because of family visiting for the holidays so maybe I'll take it in two or three days). I'm just hoping it works period in the morning at this point though. So, any thoughts?



tl;dr version: The rear portion of my driver seat won't lower and gets stuck in the upper-most position. The service department I've taken it to hasn't ever figured out what is wrong, or if they have, their repairs didn't work. I'm not sure what to do now. I found some info on some random site online that indicates there is a problem with the seat lowering across a range of GM models from 2013-2016 that may have accurate fix information on it.