[Nic123]

In my quest to eek out a little more performance on the track from my daily driver, I figured I'd shed some weight by removing the rear seats.
I found a guide somewhere on the forums that got me started but I thought I'd put together my own with a little more detail.

Start by removing the rear bench. It's held in place by 2 clips located under where people sit on the passenger and driver's side, about 1/3 of the way in from each end of the bench.
Grab under the lip at the front of the bench at these locations and pull straight up.
It takes a good tug for the clip to release. Once both clips are released, slide the bench forward and push the seatbelt buckles through the holes
in the bench. Once they're free slide the bench out the door.


Next, remove the bolsters. They're held in place by a clip at the top and a hook at the bottom.
Grab the lip at the very top of each bolster and pull towards the front of the car. Once the clip releases, lift the bolster upwards to take it out.
Not sure if it does this every time but when I took out the bolsters, the white clips holding them in place stayed attached to the car. I tried getting the bolster back on by leaving
the clip attached to the car but it was impossible to line up. You need to remove the clips
by reaching inside them with your fingers and pinching the flexible bit inside while pulling to release them. Once they're off, clip them in place on the back of the bolsters. The plastic where
the clips attach to the bolsters is cut in a particular way so make sure you get the orientation right.




(UPDATED)
The seat back is the heavy bit. You need to remove 2 torx bolts, one on each end of the seat back. Mine were threadlocked in place so they were a little tougher to remove the first time but they came out without too much fuss after that.
Once those are removed fold down one half of the seat and wiggle the two halves and smack them apart with your hand. The hinge pin will pop out of one half of the seat back. Once that happens you can take each half out with no trouble.





And voilà! Done!

I weighed each piece and in total you're removing about 65lbs from your car by doing this.
It's not a huge amount but once you get the hang of it, you can do this in about 20 minutes so it's not much of a hassle for the gain.

Hope this helps some of you out.

[katsooba]

63lbs for the entire back seat?? whoa

[Nic123]

Yep. The bench was about 13 pounds, the seatback was 46 lbs and the bolster were a couple of pounds each.

[fenixsaint]

Nice guide nic, very good idea. At least next time I go out to the track I'll have room for my track tires/wheels.

BTW are you going to Calabogie on the 18th?

[Nic123]

Originally Posted by fenixsaint

Nice guide nic, very good idea. At least next time I go out to the track I'll have room for my track tires/wheels.

BTW are you going to Calabogie on the 18th?

Heck yeah! See you there!

[bshambam]

Totally appreciate this thread and giving it a bump to say so! Pulling out the rear seat atm and I would not have known what to do with the middle without your photos.

Cheers!

[Nic123]

Originally Posted by bshambam

Totally appreciate this thread and giving it a bump to say so! Pulling out the rear seat atm and I would not have known what to do with the middle without your photos.

Cheers!

Thanks. FYI I did learn something since I made this post and updated it.
You don't actually need to remove the hinge in the middle. You can leave it in place and just separate the two halves of the seat back by wiggling and hitting them with your hand until they separate from each other. Mine was just really stiff and I didn't discover they separated until the second or third time I did this.

Also for those with a E92, the bench and seat back come out the same way but the bolsters are different. They're attached a different way at the top and don't remove quite as easily. I just lifted the bottom upwards until it popped out of the slot it was sitting in which reveals the side bolts for the seat back. I just left the side bolsters in place.