heinrich

You completely misunderstand the issue. You CANNOT remove the seat when the power button (also a POS btw) fails, EXCEPT with that little gear. Then how will you remove the seat to get it to a repair shop, or how will THEY pull the seat to repair it, without that gear which allows the seat to move to expose the mounting bolts? There are two options, namely:

1) if you're lucky you can see the seat bolts and can somehow destroy them from underneath or
2) BYPASS the EMERGENCY GEAR anyway and disassemble the transmission up front, and turn each side's cable manually with a very good grip. If you have to do this anyway to remove the seat to get it repaired, why bother withthe weak gear in the first place?

heinrich

Paul, the most common need to use that emergency gear is one of two:

1) the flexing wires at the hinge of the backrest are broken due to years of normal use and metal fatigue or
2) the seat switch is dead, which is very hard to replac with the seat all the way back and down ...

Champagne

I'm afraid I have to disagree H,

the most common is a faulty switch, I will give you that one. But they usually can be repaired in place, or be by-passed easily.

The most common failure that will actually get you in trouble, is a seat that is stuck because of something that is blocking the rails.

Don't get me wrong, if a metal set of gears was available, I would upgrade, no question. I never use the plastic one on any seat, even if it looks good, because at 20+ years, I doubt it can still withstand the load for which it was designed. Just like the odometer gears.

Paul

JHowell37

If anyone is curious, the expensive seat switches can be replaced with the not so expensive memory seat switches if you're willing to invest about an hour or less soldering. I figured I'd mention this since we're on the subject of seats.

SharkSkin

This is all academic to me at the moment, since I have manual seats in my present car. But, it seems that I am not the only one who is squeamish about putting a metal gear on there to mesh with plastic gears. So... why not replace the one that always breaks AND the gear(s) that it meshes with, using metal gears? Problem solved...

karl ruiter

I don't agree with the idea that the gear was designed to break, any more than a suggestion that our dashes and fuel lines were designed to crack. My opinion is that the germans are really great with metals, but not with plastics and rubbers.
Getting back to anwering H's question/idea.
You could have them made at www.emachineshop.com. They have a simple cad tool you can download and design your part with and see the cost of the machining and material in real time as you play with differnent processes/materials/quantities. The cool thing is that in low quantities you often find it hard to get a machine shop to even talk to you and their prices are really stupid when they do. This is better. Still expensive, but better.
You could try to mill one yourself, but only if it is pretty simple. You can get small cnc mills (I have a few), but they are not that great with metal, better with plastics. Personally I would not really want to do it unless I was in desperate need of the part.
I kind of think your best bet would be to cast one. You can take an origonal part, build a silicon mold from in, then make parts from the silicon mold. The end parts would be plastic, but you can play with different materials and probably find something that would work much better. The good thing about this process is that it does not really take any design effort on your part. p.m. me if you are interested and I can get you the link for a company that sells this stuff and some info on experiences we have had with a few different casting materials.

heinrich

Thanks Karl, will do ... Paul my friend