Uncle Harold Fixes Mom's Car

I recently enjoyed a "working" visit to see my uncle Harold in South Carolina. I say working because I drove the 400 miles between Washington and Greer mainly to get Harold's help in fixing the broken electric seat in my Mom's old 2002 Buick Century that my 24-year-old daughter now drives.

How this all turned out is somewhat of shaggy dog story since the seat wasn't really broken. However, in my defense this fact could not have been discovered had Harold and I not bought a junk yard seat for $50 and taken it apart to examine the electric motor actuators that we thought were responsible for the seat not moving up and down or backwards or forwards. Actually, Harold did this deconstruction work before I arrived. But I found and bought the seat online and Harold picked it up

And yes, having a car seat that is stuck in the perfect position for someone six feet tall is not a problem if you are in fact, six feet tall. Unfortunately, Olivia (the car's only driver) is not anywhere near six feet tall and so she would have needed to sit on an apple crate to drive the car.

In any case, the eventual punch line for this shaggy dog story is contained in the following exchange Harold and I had as he looked under seat with a flashlight on a rainy Friday morning as we began what we assumed would be an all-day the project involving the following steps:

1 - remove the seat

2- remove the broken actuator assembly

3- put in new actuator assembly

4- reattach the seat

5- pray it works when we're done

My job was to sit in the comfortable, grandmotherly car seat and press the appropriate electric switch when asked. Harold's job was to sit on a damp concrete floor and do the actual work. Great division of labor I thought.

 "What is this little rod here," Harold said after about 10 minute of expert examination of the situation? He was holding up a black rod about the size and length of a number 2 pencil.

"Don't know," I said, "Looks like an old pencil to me..."

"It's not a pencil," Harold said, examining his mysterious under seat find, "but it looks a lot like the little rod I found on the floor after I took our junk yard seat apart..In fact, I kept it and it's somewhere on my workshop table in the basement." 

Harold handed the rod to me and continued his tinkering and prodding for a while longer, occasionally asking me to move the seat one way or another. I made use of my time by examining the little rod he'd handed me. I smartly concluded that "it must go to something." That's what a college degree will do for you..it really hones those critical thinking skills. 

Then Harold looked up with a puckish expression, maybe a near smile even ...

"Let me see that little rod again" he asked, “I want to try something"

I felt more prodding and pulling under the seat, but I could tell Harold was on to something. After about five minutes of this activity Harold looked up again. He had the confident face of a man who is absolutely certain he's solved a complex, intractable problem and now all he needs to make the victory complete is to find someone, anyone, to share the moment with...

"Now try it," Harold said.

I followed his instructions.

Suddenly, the seat obeyed its seat control commands, bucking backwards and forwards and up and down like it had just rolled off the Detroit assembly line, Harold let out a mild, Baptist-allowed expression of victory and joy. Our task was done. Time for lunch!

And like all good stories of triumph, we ended up with a couple of bonus spoils from our efforts.

Me - I was now the proud owner of a 2002 Buick Century electric seat actuator assembly - valued if bought new, at least according to Buick dealership in Washington, at around $1000. 

Of course, I am keeping the part around until Olivia gets rid of Mom's car. I just want to avoid the anger and frustration I'll feel when the seat really does stop working which, as we all know, will be after I sell the part on eBay. In fact, just to confirm the main tenant of Murphy's Law, if I sell the the seat assembly, Olivia will surely come running in the house only minutes after I mail the package to let me know that the seat is "really broken this time."

Harold - He acquired a new, but likely an extremely low demand competency - fixing electric seats in old Buick Century's. And of course, he got a new story to tell and of course embellish upon. I can't imagine either one of us will regret throwing away the nasty, stained with God knows what car seat - sans actuator assembly, bien sûr!

 Personally, I was thinking that the old car seat might find new life as a comfortable deer hunting perch down at the hunt club-lashed securely to a good-sized tree and offered for use with the admonition that the seat belt and shoulder restraint must be worn at all times to avoid injury.

Harold was not too keen on the idea. But then, I can't say that I blame him. That seat did look positively infectious when we lifted it out of his truck bed at the garbage collection center and threw it in the trash bin that was bound for the city landfill. In fact, now that I think of it, it would not have been a bad idea to have steam cleaned the truck bed or at least to have washed it out with Clorox and water!

Harold Lecturing at Fix Anything University (FAU) on Electric Seat Repair ...I hear it's a great course if you can get in...

"You see the little black rod above the golden one here in this picture...now that's the key to the fix," Buick seat specialist, Harold Powers, told his students......"you can be sure, this will be on the test!"