Front Seat Recliner problems of the 1999 Ford Mustang

The incident occurred while driving on my way to work, about a block away from my residence. The seat back just unexpectedly fell to a full recline against the back seat. I was able to drive the car back to my residence so I could evaluate what had happened. I tried to visually see if I could identify the problem by trying to reposition the seat. I ended up removing the black plastic cover, which is fastened over the lever/latch assembly, to expose the internal mechanism of the lever/latch assembly on the reclining seat back. Upon removing the plastic cover, I was able to identify a loose bolt in the mechanism. I was able to pull the bolt out of the mechanism without unscrewing it. The bolt literally slid straight out. As I inspected the location where the bolt was supposed to fasten into, I noticed that there was still a remaining portion of the bolt left in the mechanism. The bolt, which fastens the latch/lever system of the reclining (seat back) portion of the front driver's seat, essentially sheared in half. This caused the reclining (seat back) portion of the front driver's seat to fall away from its upright position. Without the bolt fastened into the latch/lever assembly which allows driver to manipulate position of seat back the seat back is not able to be positioned upright, ultimately making driving impossible. Basically, the seat back swivels loosely from the steering wheel to the back seat and cannot be set securely in an upright drivable position. The bolt in question is a m10 with 1. 5mm pitch (metric 10), which is close in size to a 3/8 standard bolt. I have only owned the car for 5 years and 4 months (I purchased it in April of 1999). This is a serious problem that could have resulted in serious injury and or death. The local rchased the vehicle would do nothing to help me remedy this problem and did nothing to recognize the seriousness of this kind of failure. I was forced to fix the seat on my own.

While driving 5 mph driver's seat back broke and fell back.

There was a serious malfunction in the drivers seat on my 1999 Ford Mustang gt that could have easily caused an accident. I was driving down the highway in las vegas returning from work when without any warning, the mechanism that holds the seat back up failed and the seat back fail back on the rear seat. Luckily, I had a firm grip on the steering wheel and was able to avoid an accident. I had never had problems with this seat before, and it was subject to normal wear and tear. When I contacted Ford, they said that it was not their problem. Was out of warranty so they would not do anything about it. I am very concerned that such a failure could easily result in a loss of control of another Mustang with a similar seat, resulting in injuries and fatilities.

While driving screws pop out of seat, causing seat to lean back about 4 inches, making it hard to reach pedal.