2-Pugs said:
Hi all. Bit of a thread revival but I am doing something very similar at the moment. Putting facelift MSport seats into a pre facelift car. The electric base swap is in progress and that is going fine - thanks to all the threads on here. But I’m stuck on this occupancy sensor thing. Knowing that the two are not compatible or interchangeable, I removed the occupancy sensor mat from the pre facelift se seat with a view to fitting it in to the facelift MSport seat. That way, I thought the car would see it as a pre-facelift seat and not throw up an error. But it is a different size and shape to the msport occupancy mat. I can squeeze it in but I’m not convinced it’ll work properly or fit properly. What have people done about this? Is there such a thing as a pre-facelift MSport seat/occupancy sensor? I’m wondering if I should just fit the bypass thingy and be done with it, but then I wonder if that will trigger the seatbelt warning for a passenger that isn’t there…?
Any advice from those who e got around this problem would be most welcomed!
I sorted this with what you've said, put the pre-facelift occupancy sensor mat into the facelift M-sport seat foam, but as you say they're a different fit. Didn't want to deal with bypass sensors and the potential for unncessary airbag fiting - and I didn't have the patience to go down the coding route, so in my mind this was the best option to do it once and do it right (as far as using all the original wiring and hardware etc).
I ended up hacking a little bit on this and just cut out space in the seat foam for the pre-facelift sensor mat using a retractable blade. Like you I thought even with this cut out to accommodate the mat, that it would set off the occupancy sensor as a false positive when nothing/nobody was in the seat. And for the first week or so it did register a load on the seat when nobody was sat in it, but I think over time it has worn in nicely and no longer gives false positives and about a year later it has been solid - always registers correctly when someone is in the seat without their seatbelt on, and never triggers when the seat is empty.
It's a bit of a hack like I say, but for the easiest/cheapest option, at least the leather covers over the mess. Just make sure if you do go down this route not to cut out too much foam. As ultimately someone will be sitting on it and the foam is the direct support for them, so too much of a gap might feel uncomfortable as they're falling into the gap. I don't have photos anymore unfortunately but just take out only as much as the sensor needs - if I recall it's where the sensor mat dips down that is the problem, so just get that bit into the channel with a bit of foam removed and adjust the position to fit best.
But yeah, it can be done and works well when the time is taken. As above though, it's nice to know there are other options available should you want. The work to get these seats on an SE is well worth it, easily my favourite change to the Z so far... maybe once the hydraulic steering rack gets fitted it might take that mantle though
