Electric headrest not working - The Unofficial BMW M5 Messageboard (m5board.com)

m5_chris · 27th April 2009, 14:59

Hey all,

New owner here

Didn't actually realise the headrests were electric until i noticed the drivers one keeps falling down when you move it up manually - the button does nothing!

Passenger side works fine.

Any ideas? Is this a common problem?

I'm quite tall so would like some whiplash protection

Chris

2002silverbeast · 27th April 2009, 22:43

Our headrests are electric??? Where is the button?

chowdah · 27th April 2009, 23:03

Page 41 of the Manual. Backrest control.

m5_chris · 27th April 2009, 23:16

yep just push the back rest button up or down and it will move the head rest.
well it will on the passenger side

fumando · 27th April 2009, 23:49

Yeah...I had to bust out the manual. I spent 10 minutes pulling on mine with no luck. Felt like a damn fool afterwards.

ChrisM · 28th April 2009, 04:10

I had the same problem on my E34. I'm not 100% if the E39 has the same mechanism but i'll detail the problem and solution for the e34 and you can figure the rest out yourself

So what happens is the power up/down on the headrest turns a flexible worm cable. this cable is accessible through the back of the seat. After time the cable can 'tighten' and doing so, gets shorter. Because the cable is encased in a solid plastic sheathe and as it gets shorter, it slowly pulls away from the slot that it fits into, so that when the motors spins it, you just hear a 'click click click' noise.

The solution is to pull off the back of the seat, cut away a chunk of the plastic sheathe without damaging the cable inside, and shorten the sheathe.

m5_chris · 28th April 2009, 11:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChrisM

The solution is to pull off the back of the seat, cut away a chunk of the plastic sheathe without damaging the cable inside, and shorten the sheathe.

So soon in my ownership and already I'm going to be cutting things. Love it!
Cheers mate

nightkrawler · 28th April 2009, 13:18

i dont think it is the cable. pop the back cover off the seat. there are only two torx screws that hold it on at the bottom. the mechanism the moves the backrest up and down is plastic and just snaps into the upper part of the seat frame. it probably has unclipped from the frame. see if it is hanging down instead of being snapped in place.

m5_chris · 17th May 2009, 15:08

okay so i took the back of the drivers seat off today to have a look see, was confused by the lack of motors/gears so took the passenger side off for comparison.

Passenger side:

Drivers side:

OOPS! So the whole mechanism is missing, no idea where that went?!

Question is, can you get hold of new ones? How much are they?

Failing that I might just use the passenger side one - anyone know if it fits?

Cheers
Chris

BMWMPWR · 18th May 2009, 06:42

check realoem dot com, confirm the part number, then shop the part number around.