Swapping B7 Cloth Seats for Recaro CS Buckets - Help

[Sean_]

Chaps,

I recently purchased a set of brand new Recaro CS bucket seats for my B7. I plan on swapping them over in the next few weeks and just need a bit of advise. I have found guides to take the seats out and it doesn't look too difficult, my question for everyone is what do I do with the loom under my seats? Mine are electric cloth with lumbar support but not heated. Do these have to be blanked off? My Recaro's are heated but not electric. Any advise would be appreciated.

 

[Sean_]

Anyone any ideas?

 

[ajax1976]

What did the seats come out of? Do they have airbags?

If you're not fussy about heating and the new seats don't have air bags or any other electrics then it's just a case of unplugging the existing seats and bolting in the new ones then adding a resistor to the air bag connection on the car side. Under the seats in the car there's a black plastic cover that covers all the plugs and sockets for the seats.
If you want to power up the heating side of things you'll need the dash panel with the seat switches and a loom from Kufatek to retro fit into the car.

 

[SemiT]

Are your existing seats full electric or just electric lumbar?

I'm swapping my full leather A4 seats with some half leather A6 seats so I've been investigating the wiring.

I'd guess there are two (or three) actively monitored signal on the seats - air bag and seat occupancy. Airbag disconnected will instantly throw a dash light. I believe seat occupancy also dictates if the airbag is deployed (or not) in a crash. It's also linked to the actively monitored seat belt buckle. If you put a heavy rucksack on the passenger seat and go for a drive it'll moan about no seat belt.

I'd be interesting to see if any minor faults are stored with other things disconnected.

An easy way to find out - raise the seat as high as possible, move it back as far as possible, lift up the flap to expose the connector blocks. The yellow connector is airbag. Leave that in. Try disconnecting other blocks to see the effect on the dash.

I'll have another look at my A6 seats later and let you know which wires are which in the connector blocks (only two large (black and red) and one yellow).

 

[Sean_]

What did the seats come out of? Do they have airbags?

If you're not fussy about heating and the new seats don't have air bags or any other electrics then it's just a case of unplugging the existing seats and bolting in the new ones then adding a resistor to the air bag connection on the car side. Under the seats in the car there's a black plastic cover that covers all the plugs and sockets for the seats.
If you want to power up the heating side of things you'll need the dash panel with the seat switches and a loom from Kufatek to retro fit into the car.

The new seats are Recaro CS buckets from a Lotus and don't have airbags just heated but yeah to be honest I'm not too fussed about the heating its more the seats not showing an error on the dash. Where could I get a resistor to plug into the airbag connection? I'd imagine I'd have to unplug the battery before I went and took out the seats?

 

[SemiT]

I've seen airbag resistor cables on eBay. Standard connector looping back on itself via a resistor.

The biggest issues I see are monitored seat belt buckle and seat occupancy monitoring.

 

[Sean_]

I've seen airbag resistor cables on eBay. Standard connector looping back on itself via a resistor.

The biggest issues I see are monitored seat belt buckle and seat occupancy monitoring.

Do you have a link by any chance? I had a quick look on eBay but couldn't find anything?

Yeah I had thought about that but yesterday when I had a passenger in the car after about 10 minutes I'd noticed he had no seatbelt on when he reached back and then put it on, I had no warning on the dash to say he didn't. I know it had a pressure sensor in the seats on my GTI so I found that strange, either its broken or else it doesn't have one.

 

[Sean_]

I have found these ones actually coming directly from Germany, I wonder would these work? Very cheap as well.

http://www.ebay.de/ulk/itm/151959841404