In my effort to access the air suspension module behind the seatback of the rear seat, I had an awful time getting the seat out! Of course, starting out, I had no clue how it works, but this forum and some videos I found made it look not too bad. Finding those latches for the bottom cushion was a PITA, but the cushion came out easily enough once found. Unplug the connectors remove it and set it aside, ready for the back cushion.

Found the pull-strings easily enough, and the left side released easily, but the right side would not release. With the string slack, I could wiggle the seat, and I could feel its limits against the latch. The cord pull felt different than the left side, like it wasn't pulling as far, and when I pulled it, the seat not only didn't release, it had no play at all. I couldn't move it up or down or sideways, much less pull it out. Well, crap! Is the cord wrapped around something by a careless idiot in here before? What's going on?

After a very long time of fighting it, swearing, fighting it, cursing some more, sweating, grumbling, and wondering who I was going to have to kill, I broke down and loosened all the fasteners on the bottom rail. The seat's supposed to just release and tilt forward, and you lift it out of those rails, but somehow I'm beyond that.

After removing the fasteners and being able to pull the seat cushion out at the bottom, and even lift it up a bit, it finally popped out of the latch. I was also able to discover why the release didn't work. At first, I thought the spring was broken, as when the cord was pulled, the whole spring just tilted, instead of the top of the spring pulling down to clear the catch. When it tilted, one part came down but another part came up, so it was still in the catch. I'm really not sure how it actually released at last, but I've fixed it. All that had happened was the end of the spring had gotten unseated.

Here's what it's supposed to look like. First picture is looking down at back of the seat, from above the latch mechanism, looking down. Second picture is looking up into the latch from the bottom.




Here's what I found when I got the seat out. The bottom end of the spring has popped out of its retainer slot somehow, and it's actually under that raised side section.




With the bottom end of the spring actually free, pulling the cord did nothing for getting the spring out of the latch. To fix, I just grabbed it with a big pair of pliers and I was able to push it over into place, and all is well. I put the seat back, and had no issue unlatching it again.