Seat twist - with a twist

[Smith Jason]

The other night I started having seat twist issues on my drivers side. First time yet so thought I will do the seat twist DIY on the weekend no problem. Take time to vacuum out the driver side and under the seat. Seemed like a pretty easy thing to do over a couple hours. Got the seat out and the cable disconnected (what a pain) and lo and behold the cable is broken inside the plastic sheath. No problems there as you can still buy a new cable. I got one priced from RealOEM (and my local dealer), likely 10 days. I scoped out removing the cable.........um yah this is where the problem lays. I can easy enough get it out of the motor and I see where you might get to it on the other end (gear driven end). It looks like I have to take a good part of the seat apart. I am hoping that I can just slide the old metal drive cable out, pop in the new one but if not I will have to disassemble a good portion the seat.

Anyone know how that is done ? Lucky me I am striating vacation next week so I should have time (a day or two to get it apart and back together) Remember I got the big heavy memory seats. Yuck.

[ross1]

Unless the sheath is damaged why bother changing it? You could use the new cable and if needed shorten the existing sheath per the usual repair procedure.
Using the new cable in the old sheath would also answer the old question if the sheath "grows" or the cable shrinks.

[Smith Jason]

Unless the sheath is damaged why bother changing it? You could use the new cable and if needed shorten the existing sheath per the usual repair procedure.
Using the new cable in the old sheath would also answer the old question if the sheath "grows" or the cable shrinks.

That is plan A, the cable though is broken inside the sheath and I am not 100% it will slide out. I am hoping that is the case, but if not I need to figure out plan B

[Seat Guru]

Hi Jason, Most likely the cable portion left in the sheath is bird caged at the gearbox. You will have to remove the gearbox from the seat and disassemble in order to remove cable. Reassemble, install new cable (3/8" protruding from sheath end when cable is bottomed in gearbox), reassemble seat. Make sure both sides of seat are aligned/synced before cables inserted in motor. Any Questions, give me a call. Good Luck.

Cheers,

Paul Brill
Seat Guru
425-445-2028
seatguru429@gmail.com

[Smith Jason]

How do I sync the seat ? I need to do that to my passenger seat as well. Last time I just eye balled it close enough, but it is still a little twisted. Just bring it up as far as it will go and then undo cable and do the other side ?

[GregT53]

How do I sync the seat ? I need to do that to my passenger seat as well. Last time I just eye balled it close enough, but it is still a little twisted. Just bring it up as far as it will go and then undo cable and do the other side ?

From the M5Board:

• Jun 24, 2010 · #1
  
  
  
  The Complete DIY for Twisted Seat Repair!
  
  Okay, so I learned two things the hard way recently: First, if you are going to do the twisted seat repair, do everything possible to get it right the FIRST time because repeating all this 3x is a major PITA. Second, if you are going to do a writeup about it, do it in Word and then copy it into the thread...because if your computer reboots, you lose everything you typed. Ugh.
  
  Enough about all that. I know I took a LOT more photos but I'm having trouble locating some of them now, so I will just have to go with what I've got here. I'm going to go through this procedure as it pertained to me, which is to say that I had to do the full Monty on this repair. There are several places where you may get lucky and not have to do all these steps. Let's just say that a simple "look under the seat, heat up the black wire and pull it out" fix did NOT work for me.
  
  A note about airbags (SRS): I had no issues with this. Make sure you leave the key in the house or whatever and do NOT insert it at any time when your seat is unplugged. Follow that and you'll be fine. Also note that the power seats and such only operate for a certain amount of time, say 15-20 mins, when a door is initially opened and there are no keys in the ignition. So if at any point you are wondering "why don't my seat controls work?", it could be that your doors have been open for too long, just shut them, reopen and resume.
  
  What you will most likely need: A socket wrench and assorted size sockets, a smaller flat-blade screwdriver, various pliers, possibly a cordless drill, an 8mm box wrench (one that ratchets if you have it!), a plastic level, something to heat with (I prefer a small handheld butane torch from Home Depot, works absolutely perfectly for $15 or whatever and looks like a small gun), razor knife, someplace clean to set your seat, and probably a helper elf to pull this heavy-@ss seat out of the Beast.
  
  Summary of the issue: the reason your seat is twisting (half of it is raising, or tilting back, or whatever) is because all of the motions that are available are controlled by motors underneath. Each silver motor has two black cables running into it (one on each side) and each cable does half the seat. Inside the black, plasticky insulation is actually a mechanical cable with ridges in it. Something inside the motor clamps onto those ridges and physically spins the cable (inside the black insulation), creating a winding motion and moving the seat. One of your motors has lost half of its spinning, which means the mechanical cable has become "disconnected". What you are looking to do now is to pull that cable out, cut back the insulation to allow more of the cable to push into the motor, and reinsert so that the motor spins both halves of the seat together again. Sounds easy, right??
  
  First, try to manipulate the controls of the seat such that everything is in "normal" position. In other words, the seat bottom and seat back are level. Sure, they may not be where you want them (since you were trying to move the seat in the first place, right?) but just get them level.
  
  Step 1: Seat Removal - Raise the seat vertically to allow easier access to removing it. If you have never removed your seat before, you need to take out the metal stopper piece in the seat track behind the driver's seat. Ignore this if you are working on your passenger seat. The stopper is in the right side track, here is a pic:
  
  
  Now you can move the seat all the way back to access the bolts in the front. There are two in the front and two in the back, all size 13mm or whatever it is. The ones in the back are protected, pull aside the plastic like this:
  
  
  While you are underneath there, you need to disconnect the seat belt. Here is a photo of the bolt you need to remove, after which the belt will pull up through the plastic trim and separate from the seat (it stays hanging in the car):
  
  
  Now, in the same area (lower left behind seat, for the driver side) you need to remove the seat belt tensioner pin. It's sort of like a cotter-pin, you'll figure it out. This thing is what keeps tension on the seatbelt as the seat moves forward and back. Here's a closesup:
  
  
  Okay, there is only one more thing to do in order to get the seat out of the car (or, if you are feeling lucky and want to attempt it, you can try to do the repair while your seat is merely laying all the way back so you can access underneath it while working in the footwell area. Personally, I don't recommend it. Anyhow, the one thing is to disconnect the power cable to the seat. This will erase your memory seat settings, as they are kept in the seat, not in the buttons on the door. Here is a picture of the cable:
  
  
  Before you pull this cable out and disconnect seat power, let me say this: you really prefer to have the seat raised to max vertical height before taking it from the car. It will make your work on the motors easier. Also, it may be good to tilt the seat back and disconnect a motor or two to figure out which one operates the seat function that is messed up. Do this now before you pull power and take the seat out.
  
  Step 2: Motors and cables
  I def wish I had those other pics, they were much better at showing the entire bottom side of the seat. If I find them later, I'll edit this thread. Anyways, now you have the seat out and flipped upside down. You need to know which motor of the 3 is controlling the seat function that is twisting up. I'm running out of time for now so I'll assume you found out which one it is. Here is a pic, there are two motors in this one: one is middle right side, between the two large black support bars and the other is in the upper right corner. You can see the black cable going into it pretty clearly.
  
  Each motor has 4 screws, they are 8mm I think. They will be very difficult to get at, in some cases. Those screws HAVE to be loosened at least somewhat in order to pull the black cable (with metal tip) out of the motor. Having those 4 screws tightened down is what locks the cable into the motor. You will need to bend some of the seat's metal tabs out of the way to access some screws, you'll see what I mean. The alternative is that if you want to try to heat up the black cable near the motor, and pull it out to work on it while leaving the metal tip embedded in the motor, you can try. It's going to be difficult but some people got lucky with that, aka anyone that was able to just get under their seat, heat it up with a lighter and do the repair. Good luck with that.
  
  Here is a photo where I have bent a tab, removed some screws and pulled out the cable:
  
  
  Here is what the cable looks like:
  
  
  You need about a half inch of the metal ridged cable exposed in order for the motor to grip it properly. Once you find yours, odds are that it's shortened to about 1/4" or less exposed. Use your heat source to heat up the metal tip and pliers to pull it up and off the black insulation. Yes, this can be a real PITA. Keep at it. Trust me, that butane torch is awesome for this. Use a razor knife to cut away the black insulation to get the proper amount exposed. Then you have to heat it up again and reattach the metal tip. Once it's ready, plug it back in the motor and reassemble whatever you took apart.
  
  In theory, that should do it and you should be able to reverse all this to complete the procedure. HOWEVER, that may not be it. Here are additional issues that can come up:
  
  1) you were unable to get the seat level previously and so now the two halves of the motor are not synced up right. This happened to me, I put it all back together and found that one buttcheek was sitting at least a half inch lower than the other. This will eventually drive you crazy. So, you need to re-sync the two motor halves. What you can do is all the above, make sure the black cable is all repaired and ready. Before reattaching to motor, put the seat back in the car. Make sure it is in the exact proper location where all the bolts are aligned. Why? Because the seat is weird, trust me on this one, if you are going to level it you ONLY want to do it when it's in the car in its normal spot. Otherwise, what is "level" on your garage floor won't be level in the car. I found this out the hard way.
  
  So, you have put the seat back in the car with the black cable hanging loose. Pull it out so you can get at it, grab your cordless drill and wind that sucker (whichever way it is) until you get stuff leveled. Here is a pic to help you envision this:
  
  
  2) now it's leveled out. Take seat back out, reattach cable to motor, reassemble everything, put back in car, finish it all off and you should be good.
  
  Okay, that's all for now, I gotta go catch a flight to Vegas for the weekend. I hope that helps some of you guys, send me a PM if you need anything and I should get it via my email.
  
  cheers
  
  Sean Paul
• 
  
  
  
  
  Jun 24, 2010 · #2

[Smith Jason]

Thanks Greg, that is likely the best write up I have ever seen on how to do this repair. Especially now that I have done it a couple times myself and know exactly what they are talking about.

[Smith Jason]

So it was not the typical seat twist, with shortening cables etc and it was not birdcage inside the gearbox. That particular cable has a really sharp bend from the drive motor around to the gearbox and was broken right at that bend. I tired getting it out but to no avail. I had ordered another cable from BMW so I set about using that. The instructions for taking the seat apart enough to get at the gearbox are in the Bentley manual and actually were decent enough for me to do this. It took quite some time but wasn't hard or difficult. I have done quite a bit of wrenching and this pretty straight forward. Once I got the gearbox back together I tested everything was working using my drill. I still have to finish putting the seat back together but feel good about learning something new on my car and DIYing it as well. I cannot imagine forking over hundreds of my dollars for what I did this afternoon. I took a few pictures (mostly for my reference to put things back together) but really the Bentley manual is all you need for this one. Once you walk through it once it is really quite straight forward. I repaired my passenger side using the fuel line and hose clamps but I think I will go back and fix it properly for the $60 the cable costs. I feel really confident about fixing my big and problematic memory seats now.

[Smith Jason]

And the seat is now back together and in the car. That wasn't too bad at all. The up and down function is working better too as the cable was a little loose. I will eventually tackle my passenger seat. I think greasing the gearboxes is likely good preventative maintenance......at least that is how I consoled myself. On to other issues.....

[ludur]

I have a question, I am in the middle of this process, but I made a huge mistake, and cuted more sheath than I had to. Is this a major mistake? Do I have to change everything or is it going to work? Anybody with the same problem before?
Thanks!

[shogun]

Try it first. If necessary, you could add a small piece from a cable end ferrule or cable sleeve, I would check in a bike shop for something like this https://www.feked.com/handle-bars/cable-parts/ferrules/

[ludur]

Try it first. If necessary, you could add a small piece from a cable end ferrule or cable sleeve, I would check in a bike shop for something like this https://www.feked.com/handle-bars/cable-parts/ferrules/

Well, everything is back together, and as I supposed I messed it up. Now the bottom of the seat is not twisting, but is not able to move up or down, it just goes forward and backward. When you press it to go up or down, it sounds like the cable in the motor is not "engaging", and the weird thing is that I leave more cable than it was before, so I don´t know what the problem is.
And nos the back of the seat is not fully reclining, I think this is because I left too much cable instead of cable sleeve.
Should I try to put more sleeve to the cable or should I go with new cables? Any idea where to get new cables, since I wrote to SeatGuru, but never replied me back.

Thanks!

[shogun]

BMW should have new cables or a parts yard, but there are different makers of the seats and you have to check which one, as the cable length is different, for example one of the makers is Brose, the other RWH. Check on realoem with your VIN.
https://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/sho...diagId=52_0097
you might give it one more try, some people add a small piece of coat hanger into the motor, so that this pushes the cable to the other side and engages, here I posted that for the headrest fix https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/s...t-hanger-trick
Another possibility is to cut the sleeve in the middle and add in between the 2 pieces a fitting piece of fuel hose and fix the fuel hose onto each of the 2 parts of the sleeve, so you can adjust the sleeve length. I have see this on a German forum where someone fixed the sleeve length this way.

[ludur]

BMW should have new cables or a parts yard, but there are different makers of the seats and you have to check which one, as the cable length is different, for example one of the makers is Brose, the other RWH. Check on realoem with your VIN.
https://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/sho...diagId=52_0097
you might give it one more try, some people add a small piece of coat hanger into the motor, so that this pushes the cable to the other side and engages, here I posted that for the headrest fix https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/s...t-hanger-trick
Another possibility is to cut the sleeve in the middle and add in between the 2 pieces a fitting piece of fuel hose and fix the fuel hose onto each of the 2 parts of the sleeve, so you can adjust the sleeve length. I have see this on a German forum where someone fixed the sleeve length this way.

Interesting, so the hanger should pass from one side of the motor to the other side? because I have a lot of metal cable inserted in the motors, but the issue is that I cutted to much of the "hose". I think that fuel hose can be a good solution.
Thanks for the reply shogun! I´ll see the cables with my vin, they don´t look that expensive to have it oem and new.

Thanks again!