2008 Mustang seat back release
 

I own a 2008 Mustang Convertible, V-6. The car has been great but I'm having a problem with the passenger seat back release. The handle on the seat bottom will release the seat back but not the lever that is on the seat back. Any ideas? Is this common? I've searched the archives and can't find anything on this problem.

I too am dealing with this... It seems many people post about the plastic lever breaking off, but in this case, the lever is still intact, but it moves without releasing the seat back. Anyone fix this in a straight-forward manner, other than removing and dis-assembling the entire seat?

Thanks!

Mine function... but doggone it if I didn't bust off the farking handle just the other day. Don't know what the fix is... my issue is more with a dysfunctional lumbar support on the driver side....

Okay, so I fixed this with MINIMAL effort. There is a single screw on the bottom outboard back of the seat that holds the plastic trim on. Undo that, then pull the plastic piece up and out to release one of those round, white clips that are so ubiquitous on most cars these days. You do not need to remove the plastic panel, just get enough room to see/feel in there. By functioning the faulty lever, you will easily see that the cable is flopping loose in there. There is a round white plastic "stop" on it. Simply snap this back into the black plastic fitting on the seat and away you go...

Most excellent... another logophile in the realm... The sesquipedalian proclivity endures..... ubiquitous... as in profligate within the realm!

Oh... and good tech info too.... ;-)

Seat Lever Repair
 

Thanks to CincyGT's post I was able to fix my seat back lever. I have an 07 GT Vert and the latch on the back of the seat stopped working because the cable became disconnected from the lever.

Mine was a bit different than CincyGT's in that my cable had a head with an "L" shaped nipple. I am not sure if different years are different.

On my 2007, to get to the loose cable, I had to remove the trim and unsnap the black plastic box that houses the lever and cable. I was able to snap open the black plastic housing on the side nearest the door of the car to reveal the loose cable and the shaft of the seat lever. The shaft of the seat lever has a hole where the head of the cable attaches. On mine, the head of the cable had an "L" shaped nipple. I used a pair of needle nose pliers to manipulate the "L" shaped nipple of the cable head, back into the hole in the lever. Once I got the "L" shaped nipple back in the lever hole, the cable was attached to the lever and the seat lever worked again like it should. I then snapped the black plastic housing box shut, put the trim piece back and then put on the lever knob.

There is not a lot of room to work, so the needle nose pliers are helpful. I am not sure how much the dealer would charge to fix this, but I am sure it would be too much. The more we can save in fixing these things ourselves, the more we can spend on modding!