How to lower the rear seats from inside without damaging the luggage cover panel if the hatch solenoid is broken. It's a 2002 "s" no pull cord.

 

Get in back seat, and take a straight piece of coat hanger with a 90 degree bend about 2" long.

Carefully feed it from the top of the seat to the back seat latch and pull it up to un-lock the latch.

Its the only way I have found to get the back seats un-locked from the inside.

 

We were talking about this method as well but wanted to know if there wasn't a possibility to pull out the cover out of the tracks but I haven't had a chance yet to go in the car and investigate but the coat hanger seems to be the only solutuion. I've heard Mini fixed that problem on earlier models.
Thanks MiniKar for your suggestion,seems to be THE solution.