How to fix rear seat cup holders on Audi allroad (A6 etc.)

**jansko** · 11-02-2008,08:00 PM

Do you have the rear seat cup holders stuck and don' t know why?
Do you want them working?
Do you want to do it yourself?

Then this thread should be helpfull and I made an effort to describe it well enough so ANYONE can do it on their own. However all is at your own risk.
I don't take any responsibility for your work or material.

I decided to put this HT here as several A6 or allroad owners complained about it.

What you should know first:
It is an Audi. The car likes your attention.

What you should find out first:

A: It could happen of the juice that has been spilt over the holders and after drying it formed a sticky residue that glued them. In this case you just pull them out and wash them in warm water,no cutter knife is needed.

B. In 99% cases no juice was spilt on it and they might be perfect clean when pulled out of the seat. The reason is THE PLASTIC MATERIAL HAS BENT because of a cup with a HOT beverage was put in the holder and made the plastic material to become hot and soft. Even the small weight of the beverage would made such designed holder to bend. The logic says that a bent holder can not properly travel in its rails.

Ready? Enough battery time on your laptop?

What you need first:
1. Audi
2. a spoon with a flat tip handle
3. two narrow screwdrivers (prefer longer than those on the picture)
4. cutter knife or anything just to cut well
5. an item to finish the well done job

1. First you CAN, but don't have to REMOVE the rear seat bench. Grab it by hand at about the shown spot and tilt upwards until you notice click off. Do the same on the other side of the bench. Here you CAN USE FORCE. You will notice when it loosens.

2. Take the flat end of a spoon or anything similar you can find to loosen the cover of the holders by sliding it underneath the plastic cover and twisting the handle. You want to BE CAREFUL here. Start at one end sliding to the other.

3. Now take those two screwdrivers, notice a small rectangle slot in each top corner of each holder, push the screwdrivers into these slots and lift a small catch in there.
Then you should be able to pull the whole holder compartment out.
repeat the process for the second holder.

4. Now dismantle the compartment: Press on the damper wheel (probably of yellow color) until it jumps out off the hole from other side of the case.

5. Lift the shown part of the case at the gap where the little jig stops the holder and take the holder out of the holder case.
Be careful a metal plate spring and a small cylinder that goes into it may fall out but you will find the way in then easily in case it happens. No fear.

6. Now check if the holder is bent or not. here you decide if just washing it or "carve" a bit from the sides ends. ((This picture has been taken unfortunately after I already cut from the edges as you can see on its right side))

7. If it's bent, then you can freely sand or carve from the plastic on the ends that you will judge by logic.
Just BE CAREFUL about not cutting the jigs there. It would lead into malfunction of the whole holder compartment.

8. Put back the spring insert the plastic cylinder into it, slide the holder proper side into the case and even before putting the damper wheel back, try if it works or not in your hands, if not, it needs more of carving. When happy, insert the damper wheel by pressing on it from the other side of the case.

9. Put all back together by reverse order.

10. Enjoy

Please understand that my english is not my mother tongue. However all gramatic and vocabulary corrections are welcome by Personal Message. Thanks.