[bmwcare]

And if you're really stuck you can rotate the gear 180 degrees relative to initial position to fix...

If the plastic gear is so worn down (as in my case), I don't see how flipping it could be productive. The worm gear drive won't be catching on anything. Unless I'm missing something, what does flipping it 180 degrees achieve?

Rotate it 180 degrees is my meaning. They have a useable area of approx 40% of the circumference so if you rotate to the 'good' part it is usually fine. But new ones are so cheap there is hardly any need.