525i twisted seat repair procedure

[vchanpe]

Today, I just repaired the dreaded twisted seat problem by simply replacing the drive cable. It is fairly easy for a 1995 BMW 525i without memory seats. Here are the step by step procedure:

(1) Move seat forward to expose two torx head screws. Remove with a 11 mm socket (12 sided socket will fit the torx head).
(2) Lift the rear end up and tilt seat forward. Then push hard to slide the seat off the front hooks. WD40 may be necessary at the hooks.
(3) Remove head rest and disconnect electrical plug. Leave the seat belt attached to the seat since it is too hard to remove. However, there should be enough slack to remove the seat from the car.
(4) A thin seat belt tensioning cable at the bottom should also be disconnected.
(5) Remove seat from the car and turn it upside down to access the electric motors.
(6) Use a 8 mm wrench or 8 mm socket to remove two screws to the aft motor. (Not the front motor!). There are 4 screws to the aft motor but you only have to remove two screws to rotate the motor so you can remove the cables. One of the 8 mm bolt is hard to access and this is the hardest part of this job,
(7) Since the seat is upside down, you should be able to see the retaining clips to the reclining mechanism. Simply pull the retaining clips out with a small screwdriver. Both cables can now be easily removed.
(8) Reinstallation is simply reverse order.

Buying a new cable from the BMW dealer only cost approximately $20 so I did not resort to the cutting or repairing the cable method touted by other internet sites. I estimate a skilled mechanic should do this in one or two hours. Double that time for a home mechanic drinking beer. If you take it in to a BMW dealer, they better not charge you more than 4 hours of labor unless they are drinking on the job!

If you want to order the cables before taking the seat out from the car, you need to identify the type of motor (RHW or BROSE) and the length of the cable. The length is printed on the cable. To access this information, you need to perform steps 1 and 2 above.

Hope this helps!

vchanpe

[CWB]

you dont need to buy cables......pocket knife and $5 mini torch lighter

[4500 RPM]

Thank you for the informative post!

[Binjammin]

THAT is your first post here? Pshh.. next time include pics.










Kidding, you can't post pics yet. Welcome aboard to the... uh... board.

[CWB]

THAT is your first post here? Pshh.. next time include pics.
Kidding, you can't post pics yet. Welcome aboard to the... uh... board.

OP, lol dint notice this was your fist post. Thanks, and this is unusual for a first post

[EvilTwin]

What is this twisted seat problem?

[attack eagle]

I have a question: rear motor is for the seat back then?

and that would make the front motor for the seat bottom?

I have seat twist in the seat bottom on the passenger side.

[vchanpe]

The BMW power seat recliner are two worm gear mechanisms operated by two speedometer-like cables from a single electric motor under the seat. Over time, the internal steel cable will shorten and disengages while the other cable is still engaged. This causes the seat to twist while operating the reclining switch since one side refuses to move while the other engaged side is moving. The fix is to replace the shorten cable assembly which I did....or to repair the cable assembly removing the end with a lighter and then cutting the other shealth and then replacing the end. If you google "BMW twisted seat repair", you will find more info on the repair procedure. However, very little info was available on a complete cable replacement procedure which is why I decided to post it. My passenger seat is now doing the same thing so I intend to do another cable replacement. I will post some photos after I am done.
vchanpe

[TheStigg]

I have a question: rear motor is for the seat back then . . . and that would make the front motor for the seat bottom?

The front-most motor drives the seatbottom height adjustment, the motor just behind it drives the seatback tilt

[attack eagle]

Thanks gale. then I need to mess with the front one then.

[TheStigg]

Here's some more info I wrote up a few years ago. I need to go back & mess some with the seat bottom twist on my passenger's side that I never got right last time (shoemaker's kid).

http://www.nmia.com/~dgnrg/page_11.htm

http://www.nmia.com/~dgnrg/page_32.htm

[fifthand]

Is this fix procedure the same/similar for the E39?

[Blauanzug]

i could have sworn it was the plastic lengthening not the steal shortening, but hell what do i know about material properties.

[Binjammin]

Lol, whatever happened to OP?

[Hranj]

I'm sure everyone already knows this but its the same procedure to do the headrest as well, except a lot easier.

Also, I repaired mine without taking the seat out... NEVER AGAIN!

[Blauanzug]

Also, I repaired mine without taking the seat out... NEVER AGAIN!

+1 I tried doing that, got so annoyed I took the seat out half way through.

[Lowclock]

you dont need to buy cables......pocket knife and $5 mini torch lighter

Yep, this is the way I did it on mine. My seat was only working on opposite axis on the bottom and back. It was like a chair for a crab or something

[deprato07]

i tired once without taking my seat out and gave up, tried about a week ago taking the seat out, took 20 min. very easy fix

[PFURYE34]

...bump. nice writeup how do you align the seat to make sure its straight. cause it seems like my backrest is never straight no matter how much i play with it...the right side is stuck. thanks

[todor]

I did this on an E32 without taking the seat out, just tilting the whole assembly backward so the seat back rests on the rear seat and the seat bottom is lifted in the air. It's kind of annoying, but it's doable.

How to align it? Well, before you even start the procedure, use the button to move whichever side of the seat back actually moves to a position that's equal with the other side. It's probably tough to get it exactly right, but try it, check it visually, sit in the seat, etc... and it'll be close enough.

BTW I didn't replace the cable because I think in most cases it's not the cable that shrinks, but rather the housing around it expands or becomes stretched. So I did the splice procedure where you cut and replace part of the cable cover/housing with a larger-diameter hose. Worked fine.

[MJA95]

I hate being a newbie. Can't put any pics/etc. in yet.

Anyway I read the procedure for fixing the seats cables and pulled my seat out to fix it. Much easier upside down on the bench. The memory sport seats look a bunch different than what has been described. But I figured the process would be the same. I found that one of my cables had twisted in half. Wow that's one tough little motor. There are no clips on the cables in these seats so the whole damned gear mechanism is going to have to come out to get the cable out. That's going to take a bit more time than I had. So I put the parts back together and will tackle it another day. Bummer.

[strayts]

Lol, whatever happened to OP?

lol yeah. those were the greatest first and second posts known to mankind.

[xmellman]

I did my passenger seat this weekend. It was incredibly easy. Whoever came up with the shortening of the cable sheath was a genius. I'm not sure why you'd fix it any of the other ways outlined - this seems like a clean repair that should last a good long time. I shared the experience with my 13-year-old son - our first father-son car repair. He liked seeing the crazy German engineering under the seat. I let him torch the cable to get the thimble back on (yes, I trusted him with the torch - I'm crazy). Now, while repairing this, I noticed that the seat belt anchor point adjustment cable had broken off and was no longer attached to the seat. I checked my Bentley and it shows the cable in the detached position, so I can't figure out where and how it attaches! It is broken on the driver-side as well. This seems like a pretty trivial issue, but it would be nice to know how to fix them. Does anyone have pics of these things in their attached state? What seat action actuates the cable? Is is the forward/backward motion or the movement of the seat back, or something else? Thanks.

[wastedincome]

I did my passenger seat this weekend. It was incredibly easy. Whoever came up with the shortening of the cable sheath was a genius. I'm not sure why you'd fix it any of the other ways outlined - this seems like a clean repair that should last a good long time. I shared the experience with my 13-year-old son - our first father-son car repair. He liked seeing the crazy German engineering under the seat. I let him torch the cable to get the thimble back on (yes, I trusted him with the torch - I'm crazy). Now, while repairing this, I noticed that the seat belt anchor point adjustment cable had broken off and was no longer attached to the seat. I checked my Bentley and it shows the cable in the detached position, so I can't figure out where and how it attaches! It is broken on the driver-side as well. This seems like a pretty trivial issue, but it would be nice to know how to fix them. Does anyone have pics of these things in their attached state? What seat action actuates the cable? Is is the forward/backward motion or the movement of the seat back, or something else? Thanks.

The pic below shows where the cable mounts to w/ the clip....HTH

http://www.nmia.com/~dgnrg/seat2.jpg

[daringman]

Authors, readers, repliers...

Just a quick note of thanks to all of you for posts related to the BMW twisted seat problem.

After procrastinating the repair until I could no longer, I read and re-read the solution, then rolled up my sleeves, broke out a few tools and took to repairing BOTH the up and down and recline movements on BOTH front seats in my '92 525i.

The first fix is the hardest as you're likely in unchartered territory, but once I got it down, I now have enough confidence to open a Twisted Seat Repair Shop. Seriously, I did the last fix in about 25 minutes.

Many thanks, great tips. I have pictures and would happily entertain answering any questions users might have.

-Darrell
daring@yahoo.com