The plastic broke, because of course it did. Fortunately China has replacement covers available for ~$25 so I ordered one. It's even "leather"!
Here's the stock one. The cover material has actually held up well, but the structure didn't. You can see the broken ears at the rear of the console.
Here's the cover out of the way (since it it broken off).
First, remove the ash tray, that exposes a couple screws in the housing.
Once you get those out, you can then remove more screws that hold the rear structure together to you can access the hinges.
Here's the hinge. It's a fancy coiled spring.
You pop the center wire out of the slot, then you can pull the spring off.
The center section then pulls out from both sides. I could then remove the rest of the broken plastic.
The new one slides right on. Notice the fancy "leather" stitching.
Assembly is reverse of removal
Notice the color difference. The new one doesn't have the 'soft touch' rubberized coating the factory plastic has. My rear passengers will be very disappointed. There's also a crease/dent that probably happened during shipping. I'm sure that will be fine.
Here's some closeups of broken stuff.
01 BMW 325 Ci Center Console Armrest Replacement
01 BMW 325 Ci Center Console Armrest Replacement
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