front seat question..
 

I was wondering if any one has swapped front seats out of other bmw's into the x5 without fabricating creative brackets... reason i ask is because my heated seat pad shorted and burned through the leather, my cost on the leather and pad is 900 bux, and i'm pretty sure i can get better than the standard seat for roughly the same money! TIA!

Pete

You can. You can find interiors out of e53 on Craigslist and eBay. Just try to get one that hasn't been in an accident, otherwise you will need to take your electronics out of your seats and swap over.

^yup!

Also, E46 seats have been successfully installed by a few here, with just a little bit of work as I recall. Those will be a more common and easier to find.

I've fitted E46 M3 front seats into mine.

Come on share some pictures to show the new seats being retrofitted in the X5

Interesting. The seat somehow knows if it's been in an accident? Pre-tensioner maybe? Assuming it's connected to the seat and not the floor/tunnel.

If I'm not mistaken, the non-comfort seats in my '03 sport pkg 4.4 and E46 sport seats are identical.

Am I incorrect?

E46 sport seats are different than non-comfort, non-sport E53 seats.

Here you go....

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...psdwihzltk.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...psicof6ll2.jpg

I've also fitted a pair in my E46 330d.....suppose you could say I'm a fan of these seats!! :D

I've still got my old seats out the X5 that I need to sell on but probably not much use to anyone on here since the majority are based in the US.

Yes, the pretensioner has several wires going to it and knows when it has been deployed. Pretty easy to move the pretensioner from your seat to another one. Do disconnect the battery before unplugging anything or be prepared to clear airbag system faults (and/or accidentally deploy an airbag)

I was able to score a set of sport e46 power heated seats, I'll let you guys know how I make out, from what I was able to find out it should be plug and play!! I'll use the computer at work to re initialize them and I should be golden...fingers crossed!

You'll need to add in the loom (think it's only a couple of wires from memory) that controls the steering wheel position from the seat module otherwise it wont drop and raise when you first turn the ignition on nor will you be able to alter its position.

could you be more specific? Is there a how to somewhere? Wiring instructions?

Thanks!

I'm afraid not, not off the top of my head, it's been a while since I swapped mine.

However get both seats next to each other and compare the connectors that go into the seat module (the object with the seat position switches on). You'll be able to spot which ones they are. Basically there's an extra couple of wires that go from the main yellow connector under the seat to the module.

Or alternatively just swap the whole seat loom over but this is a bit excessive.

did you swap out the seat controls too or leave the e46 seats switches? Is it something obvious and easy? thanks again!

I think I did yes but I might not have needed to - think I tried both modules and they both worked providing the wires were in.

Yes it's obvious and easy.

where would those wires run to in the e46 seat? I appologize for asking so many questions, but this is what will pop up when people search in the future..

thanks again!

You don't necessarily have to do this. I have a shop in NY that didn't swap any modules over and got my sport seats to work (they came out of a front end wreck).

If you read what I've posted I've already given you the information for this.

When you actually look at the seats out the car all will come clear.

Just incase I didn't make myself clear...

Thanks! When I get them together if I have any questions I'll post up here!