I've searched for this and have found some answers but none have worked. My passenger side seat is fully reclined. It will tilt forward with the outside lever, but reclines almost to the point of hitting the rear seat when pulled back. I've tried the "factory solution" of leaning back with the inside lever up to re-syncronize the mechanism. I've also tried what other's have suggested which is slamming the seat back. I've used a lot of force (I weigh 200#) short of standing on the seat back, and nothing has worked. Does anyone know how to access the mechanism. I've removed the seat back and it's not clear. The bentley manual is no help. Is this even repairable? TIA

 

what ever you do DO NOT SLAM IT. that is probaly how this came to be. does the reclining handle spin?

 

I fixed it by holding up the inside handle (the tilt adjust handle) and slamming the seat back as hard as I could. It made a slight "click" and now it works. This is after I took both seat backs off to see if I could figure out the mechanism. Both levers work the same rod, but each lever has a spring that only allows the lever to rotate the rod in one direction. If it didn't have the spring, one lever could serve both functions: down to tilt the seat forward for rear seat entry, up to adjust the seat back angle. According to my research the brute force method is pretty common, and is used by several MINI techs. I found the information on the NAM list.