Sport Seat Repairs - How Difficult?

[Jon325i]

This past Saturday I took a drive to the bay area to look at a pair of black leather M3 seats I found for sale. The seller failed to disclose to me that the drivers' seat was in need of some repair work. The problem has to do with the seatback recline/forward tilt functions. When you pulled the lever, it wouldn't always go forward or back very easily. Sometimes it wouldn't budge. Also, when the seatback was set in a desired position, it would still have some movement in it (like some pivot bushings/bearings were shot). I didn't like how this felt and images started to fill my mind of the seat doing something weird at a really bad moment.....like while out on the track. Not feeling good about this, I walked from the deal and went home.

So is it difficult to repair E30 sport seats with problems like this? I've never attempted this kind of repair work before so I'm not sure what I would be getting myself into. BTW, the passenger seat worked flawlessly and the condition of the leather on both seats was excellent. Function issues aside, these were an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10.

Jon

[BavarianBimmer]

It's hard to say what's going on from a distance
probably some weared out stuff
recline/forward tilt function system is almost interchangeable with the normal seats I think :?

[christophbmw]

ive never worked on sport seats but on my reular seats it was fairly easy to fix. you would probabally just need to rplace the seat shocks, and the tilt cables/pulleys. it fixed my seats, and it was fairly easy to. only took a couple of hours. but i dont know if sport seats are the same, i have no experience with them.

[BavarianBimmer]

neither me :roll: but my sportseat machanism looks almost exactly like the standards in my 324d.
I would go for the deal on a fairly price, tilt mechanisms are not so difficult or very different
with basic tech skills you can fix it very easy

[rscheiring]

Re: Sport Seat Repairs - How Difficult?

. The problem has to do with the seatback recline/forward tilt functions. When you pulled the lever, it wouldn't always go forward or back very easily. Sometimes it wouldn't budge. Also, when the seatback was set in a desired position, it would still have some movement in it

Jon

I've worked on quite a few seats Jon. The first one is usually straightforward. Just take the back off and you will see the wires that those levers pull one. if they are lose or bent, they are likely just not pulling up high enough to unlock the seat.

The second one is more of an issue if you ever want to track the car or do a driving school. At least around here, if there is play in the seat like that they will disqualify the car.

If you can get the seats for a bargain, go for it and maybe you can tighten up that hinge. At worst you can swap the material onto a set that work well but have blown material. If they cost a fair bit, I'd say keep looking.