Electric seat stuck in one position (please help)

[tigity]

Bought a used 95 325i. The drivers side electric seat needs the controller replaced. It is stuck in a mid forward position ( too far forward for my 6-1 260 rear lol) So I know I need to replace the controller and have found several good DIYs but I can not access the rear bolts to remove the seats and can barely get to the front ones. I have looked and can't find a good post on how to move the seat forward or back manually. At this point I would be happy to just find a way to get the thing back far enough so that my knees aren't jammed into my chest when I drive. I guess eventually I will also need to know how to access both front and back mounting nuts/bolts and remove the seat so that i can repair it. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[tigity]

OK I Finally Figured This Out After Much Research and Piecing Together of Information!!!!!!!!!!!

I really could not find a good easy answer on how to do this anywhere so I want to pass along what was able to do.

So here is a DIY for moving the seat to a more comfortable position or make it possible to access the mounting nut/bolts.

Please read entire post before beginning

You will need
*a small flashlight
*wire cutters
*10 or so feet of med gauge speaker wire.
*several wire nuts
*electric tape

****make sure your car is turned off key out etc and parked in a safe manner******

1) Look under he seat you should see 2 connectors close to the seat adjustment switch (on side of seat closes to the door) one is black and one is clear (white). The one you need is the white one.

2)You will need to cut the small zip tie around the wires to free them and make them easier to work with. Be careful not to cut any wires.

3)Look for the wire leading to the white connector and a you can either attempt to unplug it ( I was unable to unplug and upon further thought I doubt it would be to easy to do this if you were able to unplug it) or you can find a easily reachable piece of the wire leading from the white connector.

4) When picking a spot to cut on the wire realize you will be splicing it and will need enough slack and room to connect another wire to. Cut the wire and remove the sheathing (leading back away the white connector towards one of the motors) revealing a green and a black wire remove the strip each of these wires.(once again the ends of the wires leading away from the connector toward the motor)

5) Using a good piece of speaker wire strip one end and safely (ie wire nut tape etc., but realize this is temporary) connect to the green and black wires coming from under the seat.

6) Run the other end of the speaker wire to a car battery (can be your own car, another car, or a charged auto/marine battery) connect one end to the ground. Then touch the other end to the positive terminal.. The seat should begin to move. If it happens to move the opposite way of what you want. Then simply connect the piece of speaker wire you touched to the positive terminal and connect it to the ground and then the speaker wire end you originally touched to ground to the positive terminal. By switching the wires from posi to neg you can move the seat back and forth as needed.

7) When you get your seat where you want it (to remove the seat youll need to move it all the way back and then all the way forward to remove the mounting nuts/ bolts)

8)Neatly, safely and securely splice your green wire back to your green wire and your black wire back to your black wire re sheathe with electric tape and your done.[COLOR="Blue"]

************ This is just the way I did mine and it worked for me. Please understand I take no responsibility for any damage accidents explosions or dismemberment that may result from anyone else attempting to do this etc etc etc.****************

This was quite easy took me about 20 mins but understand there are some inherent dangers and issues anytime you deal with electricity. So please be cautious.[/COLOR]

[jg336501]

I bought my first BMW 2 days ago and I was vacuuming the back seat and when I went to return the passenger seat to the original position, all the functions worked perfectly except for the seatback tilt feature. The motor was working, but nothing was moving. I began to panic and tried a few different things. Finally, I went back outside for one more go-round and I lifted up the manual latch to move it back and used some slight force past the resistance point. Voila! The seat fell flat backwards up against the rear seat...When I used the recline button again, it started to come forward and worked as usual and I do not recommend it.
This was probably not the best way to do it, but I believe I may have went into a panic and wanted it to work. Either way, it is still under warranty and I will be talking to the dealer about it. Hopefully they can rectify the situation correctly, instead of using force like me.