Seat bolt SNAPPED!!! oh my gosh

[metris]

[/img]

[Benny]

That's a bummer.

That cracked headlight assembly will cost you around $500 to replace just on it's own!
Don't ask how I know...........................

[Richee]

All of a sudden our poor little 5s seem to be having a lot of trouble keeping out of the way of wayward motorists

[Alex]

at least the bolts held

[adamjp]

I only just came into this thread so my apologies with being a bit out of step with the discussion.

The seat bolts are not 'one use' bolts. 'One use' bolts typiucally stretch as they are seated in order to maintain tension on the joint they are holding. They are generally only used on joints that also rotate, the stretching helping keep the bolt tight.

The seat bolts are high tensile M8 that can be used many times. The fact that the head sheared off without excessive torque indicates that there was something wrong with that particular bolt.

And as to why the seat slider mechanism doesn't break under load is the fact that the load is not a straiaght shear. The load in a seat is ALL above the rails. The effective centre of mass about equal with your chest (lets call it the nipple line). This means that when you have a 100% head on, the weight in the seat (ie. you) tries to rotate the seat forward on the front bolts, placing a great deal of force onto the slider mechanism but at a steep angle to the actual sliding motion.

Sorry to hear about your 5 dents....I think little cars (and motorbikes) are becoming less seen today as people expect to see a ruddy great big 4WD coming at them.

[adamjp]

I only just came into this thread so my apologies with being a bit out of step with the discussion.

The seat bolts are not 'one use' bolts. 'One use' bolts typiucally stretch as they are seated in order to maintain tension on the joint they are holding. They are generally only used on joints that also rotate, the stretching helping keep the bolt tight.

The seat bolts are high tensile M8 that can be used many times. The fact that the head sheared off without excessive torque indicates that there was something wrong with that particular bolt.

And as to why the seat slider mechanism doesn't break under load is the fact that the load is not a straiaght shear. The load in a seat is ALL above the rails. The effective centre of mass about equal with your chest (lets call it the nipple line). This means that when you have a 100% head on, the weight in the seat (ie. you) tries to rotate the seat forward on the front bolts, placing a great deal of force onto the slider mechanism but at a steep angle to the actual sliding motion.

Sorry to hear about your 5 dents....I think little cars (and motorbikes) are becoming less seen today as people expect to see a ruddy great big 4WD coming at them.

[Steampunk]

You're what ..... the 5th accident in the last 2 months?!

[metris]

Really? Hell thats a lot of accidents in 2 months...
I dont trust repairers to do a good job... Im now looking for that thread from a while ago about recommended smash repairers...

Thanks for the info adamjp, what you say makes sense.

[Locutus]

Sorry to hear about your 5 dents....I think little cars (and motorbikes) are becoming less seen today as people expect to see a ruddy great big 4WD coming at them.

a little off topic, but they should introduce a "SUV/4WD excess" alongside the age excess.

2+ tonnes of metal, inferior crumple zones (they just use YOURS instead) and high impact angle (imagine a land cruiser with a bullbar impacting an mx5 side on at 40km/h) must lead to insurance payouts.

[Garry]

a little off topic, but they should introduce a \"SUV/4WD excess\" alongside the age excess.

But more damage would get done to the non-4WD which results in higher payouts to non-4WD's so therefore the non-4WD would get stung with the higher excess. Isn't that insurance company logic?