Well my passenger seat has a failed tilt cable. So I started taking apart the seat to repair it.

First take the headrest off.
Second look at the back at the bottom. You may need to remove these staples in order to get enough slack to pull the leather off. I would prefer not to remove them, but it may be necessary.

Next start working the leather out of the shell. There are 5 clips on either side. Be careful of these because you can bend them and the you might need to replace them.

Then simply lean the leather and foam forward together.

My "bowden" cable was the one that went bad. It just broke at the top where it connects to the lever. The plastic caps on the two lever mechanisms are easy to remove by pulling on the two tabs. The rubber band keeps the handle in the down position. This might be something you want to replace while you are in there. The metal bars in the middle connect the two handles so you can release the seat from the driver's side of the car. I disconnected it from the top and then fed it down through the hole in the bottom of the seat back.

Then on the bottom of the seat it is connected with a spring washer. I pried the washers off the shaft. They are deformed, but I will buy new ones. Then I just slid the spring and cable off the bracket.

The directions I was following mentioned removing the storage net on the back of the seat. Very bad idea. I would not remove this if you don't have to. It is very easy to break it, it is stapled to the seat back, and it doesn't help you one bit to remove it.
If you did need to remove it though, you would simply pull the staples from the leather at the bottom as pictured above, then pull the staple holding the bottom plastic flap onto the seat. Then just lift the whole assembly up. The plastic guides on the sides will pull off the plastic pins in the seat back. If you just pull this thing back while it is attached to the car, you may pull these plastic studs out of the seat back or break the plastic part of the net assembly. Putting it back on is equally tricky if you pull them. I guess I don't really have any pics for this but I can take some.

You also don't have to remove the screws under the plastic piece under the headrest. This is only if you want to pull the whole seatback off the main frame. In order to do this however, you will need to first remove the bottom seat cushion and then the small leather flap at the seam that is being held down under the seat cushion. You can remove these with a T30 torx. I imagine you need to do this if you are repairing or replacing the heating element.

Here is the plastic part that is removed under the headrest.

There is also a cover attached to the bottom of the seat frame with two more T30 torx screws.

This cable is part #7:
http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do?model=BF93&mospid=47486&btnr=52_0563&hg=52&fg=25

Old skool, I hope you never buy a new car....How in the world are we EVER going to keep our DIY indexes updated? Thanks! :stickoutt

Old skool, I hope you never buy a new car....How in the world are we EVER going to keep our DIY indexes updated? Thanks! :stickoutt
Honestly let me tell you how much I now hate taking the car apart....the more you mess with it the less perfect it is....well to some extent. At this point I would be much happier if I could just bolt the vaders in and be done with it.

What problem does this fix?

Thank you :alright I've been waiting for someone to write this up. I'm getting tired of letting everyone get in on my side. Plus the passengers going in and out on my side were starting to wear out my weatherstripping :shifty

another great write up oldskool! i didnt have a camera when i pulled my seats apart, at least you did. gj again! i know this will help alot of people out.

will the tilt lever becoming increasing harder to pull as the cable wears out or is high lever effort indicative of something else?

It just failed suddenly for me.

Hey, we tried this fix today but bmw ended up getting me the wrong bowden cables. They were like 6 inches shorter than the regular ones. So there must be 2 different versions. Thanks for telling me that bmw :mad

May I offer one more step to this fix and that would be to disconnect the battery (maybe negative terminal only from what I've read) if you're going to do this by taking the seat out of the car which is hard to tell by looking at the pics here, but is how I did it. If the battery is not disconnected and you unplug the harnesses from underneath the seat it will turn on the airbag warning light permanently. Unfortunately my SRS light is on now the st(d)ealer wants $60 to re-set (turn off) the warning light. Peake code reader/reset unit is $120. If anyone wants to sell the Peake unit, I'm in the market.

When I did my cable fix, I did not know how to get the shell off the seat back. This is a great post. Thanks! BTW, my cable was broken at the very bottom end where the small "barrel" end of the cable fits into the release bracket on the bottom of the seat frame. Being impatient, I cut a small electrical connector crimp end from it's blade and crimped it onto the end of the cable to effectively make a new barrel and reinstalled. Sort of works but because it's a half-inch or so short, sometimes the seat back pops forward if I go over a bump. But saved me from taking the entire seat apart. Oh well!

Yes. You are right about the battery.

I recently installed these in my new car and even though I had the battery disconnected for 30 mins my airbag light came on anyway...so I don't know what to say about that but I will need to reset it soon,

Hello to everybody in this BMW forum!

wow, i have never seen this DIY before!

old skool - you are a godsend!

hi there does anyone know how to remover the rear cover on the front seats of an e46? what are the popper looking things at ther rear inner corners of the bolsters?

New to this board and this series helped me fix my passenger seat latch.

Many thanks and keep up the good work.

Then on the bottom of the seat it is connected with a spring washer. I pried the washers off the shaft. They are deformed, but I will buy new ones. Then I just slid the spring and cable off the bracket.

I'm glad I could help.

I'm new to this forum but have been tricking with Beamers for a while now.
Can anyone tell me where to get/manufacture a new cable for the seat?

You can purchase from the dealer. Also, you may be able to find a forum sponsor that can purchase dealer parts if you give them the part number. Good luck.

Pictures are of a standard seat where the leather clips over the edge of the plastic back. The sport seats are different, the upholstery goes inside the back. My question is how do you remove this type of upholstery???