Both front seats of my 1996 A4 (manual seats) rock a bit.
Nothing major, but a bit annoying for a sensible rear end.
Is there a fix?

Also, booth need a good lubrication (what's best? ball bearing grease?), and the passenger side is not 'clicking in' often when adjusted for/aft when 'loaded' (it does click in when empty).

 

white greese works the best. i had this same issue in my 99 the car is just ageing

 

Your issue is that your missing a small plastic piece who should sit at the beginning of the middle rail. That plastic piece is use to align the lock pin with the hole on the rail. I know it because I had that piece missing after my car went to a complete body restore and the guy at the body shop lost one of the piece when the remove the seats and I end up with the exact same issue. The piece itself should'nt cost more then a couple bucks.

If you have no idea what piece i'm talking about, I can try to take a picture of it.

 

Take the screws out of the plastic in front of the seats and check the two nuts that hold the seat to the track they may be loose, it takes like 5 min to remove a seat, and if ur gonna remove the seat remove the two nuts at the front of the seats and the plastic over the tracks in the rear of the seat and slide the seat backwards off the track.

 

You are referring to the looseness or the 'not snapping in'?
If piece is missing, how is it called (part number?) and where to get it?

 

Found these pages.
Which parts may I be missing?
Which ones may be loose or worn?

 

I'm referring to both the looseness and the '' not snapping in '' ... on the last picture, I can't really see it but it look like the number '' 1 '' or the '' c '' part in the small circle ... I'll take a picture for you ... that will be much better.

 

Got under the driver seat today. Turns out the seat is a 'butcher job' (another one; seems to be common on this car).

The front right rail is held by a fabricated, welded metal piece. It has play to the rail, and also moves itselfs.

Also found electrical connectors not plugged.

I am now trying to figure out how the seat comes out to do a more thorough investigation how to fix the seat.

Note: Passenger side seat has lumbar support, wheel towards center tunnel (but reclining wheel is missing), driver side does NOT have the adjustment (no wheel). Likely: driver seat was damaged/ripped and replaced with 'something', requiring the butcher bracket?

 

I uploaded photos of the driver side seat mess.
Is it possible to get the 'front support' (the butcher welded part) to get rid of the mess, which also has plenty of play?

Connectors:
- the seat itself has 2 connectors (the yellow seems to fit well with the cars connector)
Correction: 3 (2 fixed/mounted: red and green; 1 loose: yellow). The GREEN one from the car seems to fit well into the GREEN of the seat.
- the car has the yellow (multi pin) and 2x 2 pin
- the car has heated seats. Is the shown seat heated?

Any help to fix the issue is appreciated.

 

Here are the missing photos: