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  #1  
Old 03-21-2018, 02:22 AM
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E53 Seat interchangeability FYI

Just posting this up for those in the future contemplating swapping seats. They are not all interchangeable!

Never seen this posted before, but this is what I've learned so far from swapping a set of seats between an '01 and '05 X5 3.0.

Front seats: seats bolt in and interchange fine, the electrical connector is plug and play. However, the seat belt receptacles are not interchangeable - early seat belt buckles will not fit in the later seat's receptacle.

Rear seats: the brackets are different on the late cars, the outermost brackets (closest to the door) have two torx bolts each versus one on the early cars. The rear bolt is hidden under the luggage compartment trim and a little tough to get at but still doable without removing that trim. The seats drop in fine, but the little 'hoops' that latch the backrests on the later cars are longer and don't work with the early X's seats. The later seats work fine with the early X's latches.

This is not an LCI/pre-LCI thing but just running changes made during the production run.
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Old 03-21-2018, 09:01 AM
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Thanks for sharing.
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Old 03-21-2018, 09:09 AM
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When I added comfort seats from a later E53 to my 2001 X5, I found that the seat belt recptacles with the comfort seats wouldn't work with the buckles in the truck. You can replace the buckle to match the seat, or you can take the receptacles from your old seat and switch them to the new seat. I switch the receptacles from the old seats and everything is fine.
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Old 03-22-2018, 03:05 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by upallnight View Post
I switch the receptacles from the old seats and everything is fine.
This is what I ended up doing - I didn't see an easy way to get the buckle off as the bracket that mounts to the seat wont pass through the belt slot on the buckle. You would have to take the seat belt out of the b-pillar and slip it off that end.

It was real easy to swap the tensioner/latches on the seat, though it meant all the seats had to come out of the car again! I was hoping the wiring would just unplug at the latch, but one wire is hardwired all the way to the yellow plug that the car's harness plugs into. With the seat out, it's all of 5 minutes to swap the tensioner/latches.

I gave up on the rear seats as they're a no-go. It looks way too involved to swap the latching mechanisms from the backrests, and there's no guarantee they'll even fit (early seats' backrests won't work with later cars' backrests but vice versa is OK).
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Last edited by e39_touring; 03-22-2018 at 09:01 PM.
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Old 12-07-2020, 01:04 PM
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I know this is an old thread but I just started swapping comfort contour seats from a 2005 4.8is into my early 2001 3.0i and ran into the front buckle/belt interchange problem. I did not look at the rear seats yet - what about installing a later rear seat won't fit my 2001 and is there a workaround? I don't mind if it involves some effort, I would rather have the complete nappa leather interior in my 01 than a half and half set.

Thanks
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Old 12-07-2020, 02:44 PM
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The issue with the rear seats is there was a change in the latches the hold the seat backs up to the c pillar. Again, I don't think it was a model year change but rather a production date change along the way. Realoem.com can probably pinpoint it for you.

The rear seatback latches have a hoop on the c pillar that goes into a slot on the seatback. On the early production setup, that hoop is bigger and requires a deeper slot in the seatback than the later setup. In order to fit the later seats in an early car, you'd have to disassemble a bit of the interior to change out the part that attaches to the c pillar. And, I think the trim pieces around those hoops were different, too.
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Old 12-07-2020, 03:30 PM
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Thank you for the explanation. My x5 is a 09/00 build so I’m sure I will have this issue with the 05 seats. Might be easier for me to find black rear seatbacks that match my latch configuration
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