[SpdKlzU]

Hey guys, hopefully this post will finally have me adding some value to this great site!

I recently had an issue with my passenger seat in my '07 335i Coupe where the seat was stuck in the tilted-forward position. Attempting to pull the seat back to vertical just wasn't happening.

Here are some steps:
1). Move the seat all the way back and remove the rear bolts.
2). Move the seat all the way forward and remove the front bolts.
3). Disconnect the battery - there's a risk of inadvertently deploying the airbags. Note: you'll want to avoid turning on the ignition with the seat disconnected, otherwise you'll trip and airbag warning!
4). Tilt the seat backwards and remove the large yellow connector (you'll need a flat-headed screwdriver to pop up the little black clasp.

Once you've got the seat out, you can then try to remove the switch panel - this part is a total bitch! There are 3 clips underneath (one at the front, one in the middle, and a smaller one at the rear). There are also two more on the top side (seat side) which are really hard to get to. You have to pry the switch panel over and use a long flat head screwdriver to loosen them. You'll also have to unclip the lower leather panel so you can see properly.

With the cover off, you can see the hinged portion of the seat (the outer side). At first, I thought a cable might be broken or the release mechanism was stuck, but with the seat apart I could see that part was functioning properly.

My issue was the the hinge portion - it was pretty well gunked up. You can see from the pic below, I'm highlighting the hinge with a screwdriver. I lubed up the hinge with some WD-40 and used q-tips to clean the hinge out.

After lubing it up, it immediately started working properly. I also noticed that tilting the seat forwards is much smoother now, so if you think your seats are getting harder to tilt forwards, you might want to do some preventative maintenance (especially with the driver's seat) otherwise you could be stuck out in the middle of nowhere and be completed assed out (pardon the pun!).

Thanks!

[Lulz_M3]

Nice! Looking forward to doing this, mine has been consistently getting tougher to get back in the normal position.

[brianob]

I'm having the opposite problem. My passenger seat is stuck in the upright position. You think your solution might work well in this case too?

[SpdKlzU]

Originally Posted by brianob

I'm having the opposite problem. My passenger seat is stuck in the upright position. You think your solution might work well in this case too?

I could see it getting stuck in the up position if the handle wasn't pulling the cable completely, or if the cable had stretched a bit. If that hinge I showed in the pics is really gunked up that could do it too.

It doesn't cost you anything to try this and while you are in there you can see if the handle is operating the cable properly.

[shad0wfax]

I'm resurrecting this old post to say thank you. I recently bought a E92 M3 and operated the passenger and driver seats without issue. However, after getting the car detailed, the passenger seat was stuck tilted forward. My detailed was worried that he'd broken something. The M3 is still under warranty, so I scheduled an appointment at the dealership, but I figured that I would try this fix before taking the car in.

Thanks to the pictures in the original post, I was able to clean the area indicated by the screwdriver in the last picture on my seat without even taking the seat out or disassembling it; a Q-tip with some degreaser on one side and some light grease on the other side solved the issue.