Pretty much since getting the Tiguan I have been folding down the rear seats to put more in the rear of the vehicle. After one particularly long stint with the seats folded down I discovered that I could not get the larger section of the rear seatback up in the normal position again. After much head scratching and trying to figure out why I saw that the middle seatbelt that comes out of the top of the backrest was stuck. So the seatbelt wouldn't scroll out and give enough slack to let the seat fold back up. I couldn't find much info on the web, but today when the VM mechanic as helping me with the leaking bevel box seal, he pointed out that I would need to remove the bolt holding the belt tight at the anchor point in order give enough belt slack to release the scrolling mechanism.

Now, with the seatback folder down, getting to this bolt seemed to be impossible. But what I discovered is that if you pull the release tag to pull the seatback into the upright position, and lift the seatback as high as you can before it starts pulling excessively on the top (watch that you don't pull too hard as the plastic bit protecting the seat will pop out if you're not careful) you should be able to get your hand into the gap between the backreast and the bottom seat. The just yank the based towards the front of the car and it will slide out enough to give you reasonable access to the bolt.


You will need to get a spline socket/tool to undo the bolt as it isn't a regular bolt. Unfortunately I can't tell you what size you need as I didn't think to take note of that.


With the bolt out, it was easy to remove the latch and get enough slack in the belt to put the seat up. Then just bolt the latch back up and Bob's your uncle!

Hope this helps someone in future.