Xoutpost.com - DIY E70 Sport Seat Passenger Occupancy Sensor

I am going to preface this a bit and will attach pictures later but figured I would do a little write up on how to remove the seat bottom on the sports seats for the e70.

I followed this DIY:

https://www.1addicts.com/forums/show....php?t=1456923

however there are some noticeable differences between the two.

I personally purchased a salvage seat bottom and removed the leather covering and replaced with my existing one. It was significantly cheaper than buying a brand new seat bottom from BMW.

The tools and instruction list from above are similar however I did most of the work inside the car aside from the seat cover itself.

1. Remove the 4 T50 bolts from the bottom of the rails, you will need to leave the battery plugged in so you can slide the seat forward and back to reach the bolts. I did the front first and rears last so the seat was more forward than back.

2. Not sure how necessary this is but I disconnected the battery, if you do go this route don't shut the tailgate. You will have to climb through the vehicle to plug it back in.

3. Disconnect the yellow connector at the front of the seat. there are two of them. You will also need to disconnect the occupancy sensor and the heated seats as well.

4. This is where some of the differences start, you need to remove the black trim that surrounds the seat switches. it pops off with some force. there are tabs that surround the seat switch. these tabs are more hooks than tabs and just lifting on the one side and pushing on the bottom will release them from the power seat controls.

5. the seat belt in the e70 is mounted to the seat itself. I could not figure out how to remove the seat belt and this is different than the diy above and part of the reason that I did all of this within the car. it is a T25 bolt but there isn't room to fit a socket, so a minor detail that would make the overall task easier but it isn't necessary to remove the seat from the car.

6. with the black trim piece removed I rotated the seat in the car so the front was perpendicular with the door. You need to gain access to the seat belt buckle. there is a T30 bolt on this side that holds on a plastic trim piece. you need to pull this piece back so you can undo the leather.

7. at this point you have access to all the locations where the leather is held to the seat itself. you need to undo all of these around the entire seat. (there are also some in the rear underneath the seat, DO NOT FORGET THESE!!!) the seat occupancy sensor is also held down at these locations so don't forget to undo those as well.

8. there are two 10mm bolts on the front that hold the lateral thigh support to the seat as well. at this point after you undo these you will need to pull the foam and leather cover from the seat frame. you literally slide it out, it may hook on the back of the seat where the seat back and seat bottom meet so keep and eye on this.

9. Once the seat is out the hard work in my opinion is done. you are just swapping occupancy sensors at this point. if you decide to use your original leather cover its a little more intensive but pretty easy if you have the right tools. You will remove all the hog rings with a side cutter and then reattach with a hog plier and hog rings. its pretty self explanatory when you see it and reference the diy above.

10. last step is to reinstall which is the reverse of the instructions above. the only tip that i have is to make sure that all your wiring plugs are ran correctly and make sure that the foam is all situated properly before reattaching the leather.

disclaimer, if you decide to disconnect the battery, you will more than likely get a dsc error. I drove about 10 feet and it cleared. I also did not need to do any programming for the new occupancy sensor. it is now functioning flawlessly and i do not have all the warning gongs that i was getting before.

If anyone has anything to add feel free to comment below and I will edit the post.