2nd row seat backs rubbing/fluttering noise

[BenderTmoc]

So I took delivery of a 2020 MX about 3 weeks ago. It's great, but noisy - one of the noises is that any time the car vibrates even slightly, i.e. going over a bump, the sound is amplified through the 2nd row seat backs. The 60/40 split seats rub against each other, creating a very loud and irritating fluttering noise. It's even worse if the bench isn't aligned along it's adjustment tracks - for example, if the /40 split is adjusted forward, while the /60 split is adjusted rearward. Has anyone else had this issue and solved it?

I know nothing about leather care - I was going to try rubbing some Vaseline on the contact area to see if that would eliminate rubbing friction and deaden the noise, but my wife isn't convinced that this is safe for the leather. (She's also worried that if the Vaseline doesn't solve it, the Service Center folks will refuse to touch it. That seems unlikely to me, but I suppose I don't really know.)

Any better suggestions?

 

[boaterva]

Never seen this (ours doesn’t do it) and first it’s not leather. It’s polyurethane. No idea what Vaseline would do to it but probably nothing good. I’d have Tesla look at it. The two pieces of the seat are on different tracks so adjustment may be possible.

The material is Ultrafabric and cleaning by Clorox counter wipes and the like (and water). You might try also wiping down the places where the two seats touch and see if that helps.

 

[BenderTmoc]

Oof. Well that shows how much I know about leather - not even enough to recognize when something isn't leather... lol. Thanks for the tip though, that at least can get me googling in the right direction.

 

[BenderTmoc]

So I pinged my local SC about the Vaseline idea and they said basically: the polyurethane seats and the Vaseline are both petroleum products, seems like it should be fine...?

So I tried it. Initial results are positive. I'm not sure if it's because the seats sliding against each other are now silent, or if the Vaseline is juuuust sticky enough that seats vibrate in unison now, but either way the noise is 99% gone, at least for now. Hopefully this stands up over time, but I wanted to update the thread now in case anyone else had the same issue.