[Stevesmini]

Thanks do much for your in depth reply HAPPY1, this kind of information is invaluable and not what is easily obtainable from things like the Gregory style workshop manuals. I still haven’t got the car back but I’m feeling pretty confident from the initial look and photos I took the damage might be to a totally confined to the seat and seat wiring itself only. The “car” wiring loom is hopefully untouched as the fire was extinguished very quickly. The extinguisher used has left a bluish powder behind so no water damage. There was the factory territory rear mat across the tunnel plus another carpet mat and even a rubber mat on that so the carpet and floor pan itself may be quite un damaged. Also the side plastic mouldings on the seat don’t appear burnt or melted so this gives me hope the plugs on the car wiring loom may still be serviceable also. I’ve learnt so much since this fire, I never knew the seat rail had a sensor to tell the computer where it’s positioned so that in an accident the airbag would use this info to inflate at the correct rate to avoid injury to the driver. I also never knew exactly how and why seat belt pretensions operated. Gone are the days of undoing 4 bolts and whacking any old seat in a car. The car is a base model 2005 (not 2004 as I previously thought) SX TX AWD.