Fitting S3 seats

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BromleyA3

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im getting an S3 interior very soon does anyone have any fitting insructions im fitting them in to my 98 A3 1.6 SE will the airbag connecters just plug in or will i need 2 get new connecters or join them of some sort as the S3 interior is from a 2002 car many thanks
 
think you might have more fun than your banking on with this one... are the seats heated? if they are then there's not just the airbag connector, but also the heating connector and the power seat connector, could be fun to sort, good luck though, guess you need a wiring diagram for the seats, someone might have them on here???
 
nah they are not but im not taht bothered about teh heated seats i thought that i would jsut have to run a cable 2 a permanent or switched live from the seat/lumbar
 
as i understand it, if the airbag warning light is on none of the airbags will fire in a crash. removing the seats is very easy, remove the plastic trim covering the ends of the runners behind the seats, then undo the torx head bolts below the front of the seats, which hold to the car, then just slide them back and off the runners, unpluging the wires underneath when you can reach them.
 
yep just need power to be on the ignition, i took the power from the buss bar, behind the lower dash below the steering wheel, the yellow terminal on the left is the ignition live. From here you can either buy the correct wires from audi so you can have a fuse in the board in the side of the dash with the others, or just install a inline fuse. The run the wire to the seats using their existing earth. I thought your old seats were already powered, so wouldn't need new wiring?

As for airbags, i took mine S3 seats out at weekend to have a look at plugs. Connecting new plugs isn't the difficult part, like you say can get new ones from audi to replace seat ones so the car loom isn't cut. The difficult part is that the wire colours on the s3 seats aren't the same as on the car, so isn't as easy as just connecting red to red.

Car has combination of yellow and green striped wires, And brown earth
both seats have a brown earth
s3 seats have a blue and a black wire
a3 seats have a blue and another thinner brown wire

now you would think the blues match up and therefore the black and brown belong together?!!!

sounded a bit too risky to guess i thought!! so i put a 4.7 ohm resistor in the cars plug and reset with vagcom, so the other bags will work til i ask a electrician friend of mine.

another safety point with airbags, static electricity can set them off!!!! also if you do replace the plugs ensure you don't touch the wires together, at any point!!! could get messy!!!!!!!!!
 
many thanks settle does anyone else no the colours to math them up then
 
to be honest i haven't bothered, i'm selling the car with the s3 seats in it and don't wanna mess anything up with it. BromleyA3, the resistor just sits in the plug on the car, two contacts on the plug, one end of the resistor into each contact, easy as that.
 
then will the airbag light have to be re set or will it just not go on many thanks settle
 
khufu so are u saying the green wire goes with the black wire and the white wire goes with the blue wire and brown wire goes with brown wire ?????
 
audi upgrades
according to WinElsa, I will try to get the PDF for you - its a pain that you cant link to a pic/file off of your hard drive anymore.
 
thanks khufu, that looks like the wire colours of the a3 seats, don't suppose you have a similar diagram but of a latter spec s3??
 
right as i may be able to get some S3 interior was wondering about this resistor? where from how much and what does it look like? if its got a part number or code which am i after?
 
thanks khufu i'll digest that pdf and see if i can figure out wires
the resistors cost 14p for the pair from Maplins, there website is www.maplin.co.uk find your nearest store and just ask them for a 4.7 ohm resistor, just make sure you as for a 4.7 ohm not 4.7k.
 
I shall be attempting to fit my new interior this weekend. I have no electric lumbar adjustment, so I will be running an ignition live to the front seats.

What ampage in-line fuse should i use?
 
also leddy i've just noticed your car is a 2002 spec, now i'm unsure what interior you've bought but guess it's an s3 one, in which case you might find you don't have any airbag connector problems that i had because later A3's have the same connectors as S3's, goodluck with the change over
 
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also leddy i've just noticed your car is a 2002 spec, now i'm unsure what interior you've bought but guess it's an s3 one, in which case you might find you don't have any airbag connector problems that i had because later A3's have the same connectors as S3's, goodluck with the change over

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That would be a real bonus, I won't know until I've got everything stripped really. The other fortunate thing is that the seller included the car end of the loom so I have the S3 plugs if I need to do some on-the-fly rewiring!

The only tricky bit will be running power to the seats, i'm planning on breaking into the switched live at the fuse box, though this is already feeding the headunit and my bluetooth hands free kit - do you think this is okay or should i break into the hot side of that fuse and put my own inline fuse?
 
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hat would be a real bonus, I won't know until I've got everything stripped really. The other fortunate thing is that the seller included the car end of the loom so I have the S3 plugs if I need to do some on-the-fly rewiring!


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You should be carefull doing any rewiring on the original airbag wiring. Authorized Audi personal are not allowed to do this; they have to remove the hole loom and replace it with a new one. (a thing to think about if you're going to sell your car /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

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Thanks for the words of warning! I am only going to plug them straight in if the plugs are the same on my car as the plugs on the seats (as Settle pointed out, there is a good chance they are due to the year of my car). If they aren't, i'll leave the airbags unplugged, and take the car to my local specialist on Monday and let it be their problem!

Any ideas on the ignition live feed I mentioned above?
 
i would definately go on to the switched feed on the buss bar, its rated for 75amps, i think, so running the headunit, bluetooth and seats should be fine.
what are the new seats like? full leather, half leather? colour combination?
 
also are you going to wire up the heating?
 
The seats are grey full leather S3 items, and for the moment i'll leave the heating as I haven't had a good think about where to locate the switches. There is a thread in here regarding the blanks either side of the esp switch that would be ideal, but I don't think anyone knows any good OEM switches that will fit there. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

Btw, the fuse in the SKontact feed is 10amps I think, would this be groovy for all the items that will be hanging off it?

I'll be sure to post pics when finished /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif
 
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So Leddy what are you doing with your old seats? Also what colour are they?

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They are anthracite, was going to stick them on ebay as they are mint, unless someone on here wants them. I can get you some pics tomorrow if you want.
 
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i would definately go on to the switched feed on the buss bar, its rated for 75amps?

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Where is this 'buss bar'?

regards
 
Right, everything fitted. Airbag plugs were the same so that was nic eand easy, ignition and earth was run from the fuse box. All electric amazingly worked first time.

Front seats

passengerseat.jpg


Driversseat.jpg


Rear seats

rearseats.jpg
 
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Right, everything fitted. Airbag plugs were the same so that was nic eand easy, ignition and earth was run from the fuse box. All electric amazingly worked first time.


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Looks great!

As I have S3 el recaros just waiting to get fitted; where did you run the cables? Did you buy a wire loom or did you create one yourself? (shouldn't be that hard) Where in the fuse box is ign-on found?

regards
 
As all the plugs were included with the seats, i just ran power and earth cables myself and joined them to the power plug. Ran the cables down from the fusebox under the carpet along the door sill and across under the carpet to where the airpug plugs come out.

The connection you want at the fusebox is labeled Kontact-s in the handbook. If you do a search in the Ice section of this forum you should find a tutorial by AndyMac that shows you how to break into the correct fuse and it's likely location in the fusebox.
 
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The connection you want at the fusebox is labeled Kontact-s in the handbook. If you do a search in the Ice section of this forum you should find a tutorial by AndyMac that shows you how to break into the correct fuse and it's likely location in the fusebox.

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Thanks a lot :)
 
Hey Leddy,

Seats are looking sweet. I wish I could nip-out and just grab a set right now! ...Maybe some day.

Regards,

Rob.
 
does anyone know if S3 S4 seats are exactly the same?

How easy are they to fit into a A4, anyone?

My A4 has electric lumber support so how would i wire up the other movements.

Cheers
 
S3 and S4 seats are essentially the same except the S4's dont have the forward tilt/release facility as in the 3-Door S3!
 
i'm not sure if your trying to fit S3 seats into a A4 or S4 seats? S4 will of course fit but i don't think S3 ones will?! pretty sure they have different runners, could get them changed i guess but would be expensive and effort?! but then i guess S4 seats are like rocking horse sh*t!
 
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