Thread by @RoadsideMum

Ah fuck it. The handle that adjusts the seat height in the car has snapped. Worse still it has snapped at the setting RD uses- not the setting I use. I have sent RD out with a set of grips to put it where I use it and banned him from driving it. He's sulking. Tough. He can walk.

It means it has to be fixed before school reopens on Monday or I have to do the school run myself and realistically I can't.

We are now trying to work out if it can be fixed.

Bad news. If your car seat is designed to move and no longer does, it will fail the MOT.

We have established the worst case scenario- replace the seat entirely. Looking at around £110 if it comes to that.

Still researching if a less nuclear option can be identified.

The metal lever that sheered is available new... But...

Firstly, 37 different kinds of seat were used in that model of car.

Secondly, cheapest lever will be £292 from the manufacturer + that's probably not the seat we have.

Thirdly, there are no generic levers on the market.

The lever is too complex to ask a workshop to fabricate, it has a wheel shape with protrusions at the other end. It's just not the sort of job they take- so making up the new park again is out.

Buying a seat from a scrapyard, somewhere around the £75 to £110 mark, to refit the whole seat is not looking good because 37 types of seat were used, and 36 of them may not fit or match.

So a scrapyard seat has a 1 in 37 chance of being the right one.

And anything that means the whole seat has to come out, means potentially irritating and hard to resolve issues with the airbag sensor and the seatbelt sensor, so that's to be avoided.

Really, we need to get in the side of the seat. Of course no instructions exist for how.

Just leaving it is out.

He can't drive the car at its current setting.

And the car can't pass another MOT with this issue outstanding, so it couldn't be sold on.

It's life/death serious for the car now that we find a solution.

But we have an idea...

You remember I mentioned Dave in the sheds? A creative, if not especially highbrow mechanic, who doesn't charge a fortune either. We like Dave in the sheds...

A weld won't be strong enough for the force, but could we put a sleeve round it?

So imagine this... Of a piece of pipe were hammered fairly flat, what do you have? An oval sleeve. Join and secure both ends of the sheered bar inside the oval sleeve and... We might have a solution.

It means taking out some of the inside of the plastic handle, however...

Plastic can be rebuilt with epoxy resin. A job RD has done many, many times to get things like cracked fridge door milk holders and kids plastic toys to last out their required durations.

If Dave in the sheds reckons he can do it, by the time the handle is fixed (with Dave joining it in a metal sleeve and us rebuilding the plastic handle back onto it). The repair will be stronger than the original construction was, and look no different.

And, it will last out the lifespan of the car. As an added factor to consider, car has more reason to be preserved than simple economics, but that's not a tale I can tell today.

So we think we have a plan. It depends on Dave.

Dave, of course, is having a day off today. 🤣