Peter T
I recently changed my e53 interior for a better one and promised that I would write up the exercise as a ‘How To…’, so here it is:
Background:
I started with black, standard leather, electric (plus memory) non-heated sports seats and ended up with black, nappa leather, electric (plus memory) heated sports seats with electric bolster adjustment. I got these off eBay and the deal included the four door cards and the entire centre console including the heated seat switches. This cost me £400 which seemed a good deal. I’ll write up the door card changeover as a separate ‘How To…’ later. One small additional task for me was to change over the headrest screens from old seats to new.
Overall the job was pretty straightforward and I reckon that it could be done by one person in less than four hours. As you’d expect, two people would make the job that bit easier and quicker.
First, remove and changeover the front seats:
Each seat has five nuts/bolts that need to be removed: two nuts at the front, two bolts at the rear and a bolt holding the seat belt to the seat itself. The front nuts have small black plastic covers that are simply prised off. 16mm spanners or sockets are ideal (sockets for the seat, ring spanner for the seat belt) Moving the seat forward and back gives easy access to the nuts and bolts, and raising the seat gives easy access to the seatbelt mounting bolt. See the picture for a view of the rear left hand side of the LHS front seat showing a holding down bolt and the seatbelt attachment:
Once the seat is free, tip it backwards slightly and disconnect the power connector – this is a yellow plastic plug and socket arrangement. It has a black plastic mechanical interlock that needs to be pulled out slightly – more difficult to describe than to do. This picture shows the seat end of the arrangement with the yellow socket:
and this one shows the yellow plug when the front seat has been removed. It also shows the rear foot well heating duct and the cable for the rear headrest screen (which I’ve hidden in the joint in the carpet and which is also concealed in the centre console. With the front seat in place this cable is hardly visible and is well protected
Once you have the front seats out fitting the replacements in is (to quote Haynes Manuals of old) the reversal of removal. Don’t forget to remake the electrical connections to each seat.
My headrest screens have the wiring concealed in the support post so once the headrest is in place no wires can be seen.
The cable fits into the seat back – the seat back cover is easily removed once you remove the two small trim fittings found at the bottom of the cover.
To enable the front seat heating the last thing to do is exchange the centre console switch module. Remove the old one by getting a very fine blade tip (I used a sharp kitchen knife) under the very end of the switch module and prising it up. With care this will not damage the module at all. It has a single plug connecting it to the car wiring and this pulls out easily. Replace it with the upgraded switch module with the heated seat switches and replace the switch module in the centre console.
The new switch module has different legends on some of the switches compared with the old one. I think it’s possible to change the caps on the switches but it would be some effort for little gain.
Time to turn it on and check everything works now. If the seat heating doesn’t work check the fuses are in position in the front fuse-box in the glove box. Maybe I was lucky – everything worked as it should immediately, although I do now have the airbag warning light on in the dash – I’ll get the dealer to reset it – the car needs a service soon anyway.
Now for the back seats:
The rear seat base simply pulls upwards with a bit of a tug at the front edge. To remove it completely the centre seatbelt needs to be unbolted from the under the area normally under the seat base. Again it’s a 16mm bolt. You may notice that there is wiring with attached plugs normally hidden under the seat base. This is the pre-wiring for the rear seat heating (another project perhaps…). See pictures:
Now the two parts of the rear seat backrest need to be removed. Remove the boot floor cover for this part to give a bit better access to the key areas. The side squabs between the seat back and the door simply pull out, initially towards the front of the car. I recommend you start at the top and once this has come free pull the squab vertically upwards as there are fitting tabs at the bottom ends that might be broken if you simply pull towards the front of the car.
Once these are out the fold the seat backs forward as normal and then you will see the three mounting pivots, one at each end and one between the two halves of the seat. These all have top caps on them so that the seat is held securely, these top caps need to be removed. For this you need torx screwdriver size T30. The one in the middle is easy: see (slightly blurred) picture of pivot with cap removed:
The caps at the sides also have T30 torx bolts. The rearmost of these cap bolts is tricky to get at as the boot trim is in the way – it just needs forcing to one side to give you access – it helps if you remove the nearest trim clip to give a bit better access. This picture shows the RHS pivot cap still in place and the trim clip I mean is towards the top left hand corner of the picture:
Once all the caps are removed you can lift the rear seat out of the pivots and separate the two parts of the seat backs – they just pull apart.
That’s it – the rear seats are out. Now just reverse the procedure to replace with the new ones!
