WANTED E85 Heated M Sport Seats Pre-LCI (any colour)

Wanted
P

ph1l1p

Member
 Chichester, West Sussex
Hi everyone,

I’m looking for some m sport seats for a pre facelift e85. I’m open to any colour. They would need to be heated. I don’t mind if they’re manual or electric as I’ve heard that the wiring is already in place to make them electric, despite my car coming with manual seats.

Whilst pre-facelift seats would be ideal, i wouldn’t turn down a good deal on a set of facelift seats as i’ve heard there are ways to make them work properly.

I’m on the south coast of the UK, and I would prefer to collect. I’m not too bothered about how far, but, obviously, the closer the better.

If anyone has anything that could be of interest, please let me know.

Thank you very much in advance.
-Philip
 
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Just for clarity I think you are probably looking for M-Sport seats like these.

Z4 M Sport seats.jpg

BMW called the standard ones "Sport" seats.
 
Wiring is only there for preface lift cars , although I can confirm it’s fairly easy to convert manual to electric seats if you have the electric bases , even if they are from a none sport seat. Took a 2004 from bog standard non heated to full electric and heated , was all just plug and play.

If you really want to go for it , I have been working out with a mate how to go memory passenger seat too. It involves a left hand drive switch pack and parts from an electric RH drivers base, but we think we have cracked it.
 
Z44Jon said:
Wiring is only there for preface lift cars , although I can confirm it’s fairly easy to convert manual to electric seats if you have the electric bases , even if they are from a none sport seat. Took a 2004 from bog standard non heated to full electric and heated , was all just plug and play.

If you really want to go for it , I have been working out with a mate how to go memory passenger seat too. It involves a left hand drive switch pack and parts from an electric RH drivers base, but we think we have cracked it.
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Seating positions are stored in the K-bus. Will be interesting to find out if it can store both sides with different positions or whether the passenger seat will mimic what the drivers seat is set to.
 
Usel said:
Seating positions are stored in the K-bus. Will be interesting to find out if it can store both sides with different positions or whether the passenger seat will mimic what the drivers seat is set to.
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I know there is a CAN wire missing, "hot wired" it works but I never thought to check what impact the seats have on each other. That would actually be a benefit as I like t have the passenger seat matched to the drivers anyway. Its a winter project, with two other Zd's in front of mine to work on, so it will be a while.

Presume the white , red, yellow dot CAN wire is a parallel circuit, do you see any issues with where we pick up the CAN feed for the passenger seat?

Only doing this as I had all the spare parts left from a damaged drivers electric subframe ( someone cut the seatbelt mounts from it). The only thing I have bought is a £30 LHD seat switch switch from a LHD E46. Ph1l1p, apologies for the thread hi jack.
 
If the seats positions do mimic each other you can always use position 3 as a special passenger seat position and 1 and 2 for the drivers seat 👍

Edit: actually a memory press on the passenger seat may operate the drivers seat as well?

Edit 2: you could fit a rocker switch on both the passenger seat and drivers seat can bus wire. Position the rocker in the round hole on the plastic cover which houses the switch for the bolsters on an E46/E39. Then you can have different positions on both seats.

The can wire can be joined up to the nearest can wire you can find. There's one on the back of the radio which is easy to get to. Just splice in it with a crimp. There is a specific point all the can bus wires all meet up but they are all just crimped together with a bullet connector and is buried in the wiring so don't bother trying to search for that.

From the seat switch a second set of wires run from the switch to the motors. All motors have a second connector on them. So use the wiring from an old drivers seat and the pin them all correctly. Should be easy 🤞
 
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Not all prefacelift are wired for it. Only up to a build date of October 04 had all the looms in place
 
enuff_zed said:
Not all prefacelift are wired for it. Only up to a build date of October 04 had all the looms in place
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Good point Martin, Jacks was registered December 4, so I may have hit lucky. I know the seats work with just an earth and a live, with CAN Bus just needed for memory function, so if the OP is unlucky enough to not have wiring, its a fairly easy fix to my understanding. As ever this forum is a great source of knowledge.Thanks again.
 
Usel said:
If the seats positions do mimic each other you can always use position 3 as a special passenger seat position and 1 and 2 for the drivers seat 👍

Edit: actually a memory press on the passenger seat may operate the drivers seat as well?

Edit 2: you could fit a rocker switch on both the passenger seat and drivers seat can bus wire. Position the rocker in the round hole on the plastic cover which houses the switch for the bolsters on an E46/E39. Then you can have different positions on both seats.

The can wire can be joined up to the nearest can wire you can find. There's one on the back of the radio which is easy to get to. Just splice in it with a crimp. There is a specific point all the can bus wires all meet up but they are all just crimped together with a bullet connector and is buried in the wiring so don't bother trying to search for that.

From the seat switch a second set of wires run from the switch to the motors. All motors have a second connector on them. So use the wiring from an old drivers seat and the pin them all correctly. Should be easy 🤞
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I certainly have options, may get chance to try that theory later this evening. Thanks for your sharing your knowledge.
 
Ph1Lip, another couple of care points.

Heated seat mats are sewn into the seats on the centre panels. Not easy to update if not fitted. Ideally although there are work arounds you need the correct seat for your car i.e , face lift, pre-facelift as the occupency sensors are different.
 
Z44Jon said:
Ph1Lip, another couple of care points.

Heated seat mats are sewn into the seats on the centre panels. Not easy to update if not fitted. Ideally although there are work arounds you need the correct seat for your car i.e , face lift, pre-facelift as the occupency sensors are different.
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Are you sure they are sown in? I was sure @Usel told me the standard seats were, but the M Sport ones were separate? I may have imagined that of course?
Correct on the pre/post thing though, but as you say, a seat pad emulator and NCS Expert to code out the 'bong' can sort that.
 
enuff_zed said:
Are you sure they are sown in? I was sure @Usel told me the standard seats were, but the M Sport ones were separate? I may have imagined that of course?
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Had Jacks apart as i fitted a new drivers backrest foam, bolsters are glued to the foam, centres are sewn into the cover on M Sport for sure.
 
Z44Jon said:
Had Jacks apart as i fitted a new drivers backrest foam, bolsters are glued to the foam, centres are sewn into the cover on M Sport for sure.
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Correct, centres are sewn in but the bolsters are stuck to the foam. They are seperate from each other.
 
My car is a pre facelift, built in Sep ‘04. So, it looks like electric seats may well be something i could retrofit. Also, the seats in my car currently are heated, so that should be fine.

I’ve heard that an adapter can be fitted to make the facelift occupancy sensor work? Not sure about the details, though. Is it best to just find the right seats?

Thanks for all the help
 
The ideal is to get pre face lift seat but they were much more common in facelift so this will most likely be what pops up. You can cheat the sytem, depending on what you use it will either tell the car there is nobody in the seat all the time, I did this initially with my sons and then realised it would mean the pretensioner and pasenger airbag would never go off. I quite like his girlfriend so didnt think that was an option.

I believe there are other cheat devices out there that make the airbag active all the time, the trade off is that the car will chime when the seatbelt isnt connected as it thinks there is always someone in the passenger seat. I believe this can be coded out or just plug in a spare buckle.

My sons original seats were valueless so I took the occupancy sensor from them, it can be made to fit his originals were just basic and not M sport, although the car isnt in use during the winter & certainly wont be carrying passengers so I have not got round to fitting it yet. The cheapo cheat device I initially bought didnt actually work either, it put the airbag light on and would not clear. lots of helpful people on here so dont struggle in silence.

Make sure whatever seats you buy have the seat belt guides at the top as new ones will cost you more than the seats if you can get them!
 
ph1l1p said:
My car is a pre facelift, built in Sep ‘04. So, it looks like electric seats may well be something i could retrofit. Also, the seats in my car currently are heated, so that should be fine.

I’ve heard that an adapter can be fitted to make the facelift occupancy sensor work? Not sure about the details, though. Is it best to just find the right seats?

Thanks for all the help
Click to expand...
I recently fitted facelift Sports seats in an 03 car. With @Usel's help I fitted a seat pad emulator, swapping the occupancy sensor over from my pre-facelift seat and then attaching an emulating resistor to it instead of plugging it into the seat. This makes the car think there is someone in the seat all the time so it wants the seatbelt clipped in, or else it bongs at you.
You can either attach the seatbelt, get a spare seatbelt clip and fit that, or use NCS Expert to tell the SBSL not to worry about the seatbelt clip.
 
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