Plastic seat ends

Good morning All 996 Purists, I am new to Porsche ownership, based in South Africa. I have a 2002 996 Targa which pretty rare and hope that the values increase. Its well used and needs a lot of TLC. I am not a mechanic by no means but am willing to try and repair a few easy items. Both driver and passenger plastic seat covers, as per pics, were missing. ( they appear to have been broken off when the seats were re-upholstered at some point ) I have sourced a set of second hand ones and want to attempt the job myself. Question- to replace them does one need to remove the seats ? Or how would one put the new plastic covers in ?

Hi and welcome aboard.... where are you is SA...? I spent 12 sunny years in Durbs from 1980 - 1992. I've just taken a look at mine and i would suggest it may be seats out job. 996's are super rare over there i'm guessing. Si

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Hi Si, I live in Johannesburg. Durbs is still a nice place and still very hot in Summer. 996's like the rest of the world are becoming more and more popular so buying one is pretty hard to do these days. I looked for a 997 for a few years ( at a decent price ) but decided on a 996 and am glad I did. Its a PROPER Drivers car.. not like the new cars of today. Yip- I think you may be correct by taking the seats out which is definitely not something I want to even attempt.

.....not as scary as you imagine, disconnect the electric seat harness and undo 4 runner bolts and she's out I think .... i'm sure Alex will be along soon with the correct procedure.

I’ve just replaced one of my covers as part of a seat refurb job. My seat was out anyway, but I very much doubt you could get access to attach it without removing the seat first. If the old covers broke off then there should still be the remains of the plastic base of them which attaches to the metal seat frame via a plastic plug. This plug needs to be knocked out from the inside of the seat with a screwdriver or similar and a mallet. Once knocked out you can re-use the plug to attach the new cover.

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Good morning Nightshade, Thank you for your input and yes I agree the only way I see that it can be done is to remove the seats. I'll keep this job back until I have some time. Thank you once again

Seat removal is a really simple job, takes 10mins, don’t be scared to attempt jobs on these cars, they are very basic and easy to work on. Welcome to the forum

Where did you get the plastic piece from? I enquired at an OPC and recall it being in excess of £150.

Yeah I saw they are £200+ on Design911 and refused to pay that for a piece of plastic! I found some repros for sale here: https://octoclassic.com/product/por...m-black-left-or-right-98652131500-98652131600 They’re £60 plus shipping. That company 3D print them in Poland and then ship to the UK. It takes around a couple of weeks to make and ship. I was very happy with the quality, you could not tell it apart from the original one once fitted.

Replacement instructions here : https://rennlist.com/forums/996-forum/684770-seat-trim-or-hinge-cover.html Scroll down a bit for pics

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Good morning, thank you for the confidence booster. I bought the reverse Hex spanner this weekend and will attempt the seats removal tomorrow. I am sure it will work out fine... there are so many FB videos out there to confirm what I need to do.

Done both seats now. Driver seat was removed and done that way. The passenger seat was done in situ. I just popped the upholstery clips and lifted the seat area. But happy and both seats looks better and complete ;-)