Looking at a pair of M seats - need advise

[tomrdy]

Hey guys,

Found a pair of M seats from a wreck here in Australia - pretty rare find and I need some advice. I've read as much as I can but I haven't been able to get a concrete understanding.

The car is a 2007, facelift. My car is a 2004 pre-facelift.

Driver airbag was blown (front impact it seems though engine and tranny all intact).

Questions:

- Seat heating: The seats are heated. Will these just plug straight in?

- Occupancy: I guess this is one of the main things I'm most confused/concerned about. Some say need a bypass, others say no. Preferably I would not want to use an emulator (things are strict and grey down here with mods/insurance) so worst case I'm prepared to do some seat butchering and swap my stock stuff over. Also read somewhere that some of the older cars DON'T even have the sensors on the passenger side? If someone can chime in on this that would be awesome!

- Seat belt: Since the car was in a wreck, would the seatbelt buckle (bit the seatbelt clips into) need to be swapped over? I had a look and there's a serious looking silver cylinder which I presume is something that fires during an accident? Is there a way I can check if it's already gone off (length/markings etc?). Additionally, any issues with swapping my originals over?

Thanks guys, any advice would be much appreciated!

 

[Zoomer]

I have facelift seats in my 2003 zed. They work fine. They are also heated. I would think you need to change the seat belt clip over but it’s fairly easy.

Hope that this helps

 

[tomrdy]

I have facelift seats in my 2003 zed. They work fine. They are also heated. I would think you need to change the seat belt clip over but it’s fairly easy.

Hope that this helps

Hey Zoomer thanks for the reply!

So it was a complete plug+play?

 

[Zoomer]

From memory yes.

 

[tomrdy]

Great thank you! That helps my decision a lot

 

[kis]

1. Should be straight plug and play. Even assuming you don't have heated seats at the moment. Most pre-facelifts came with all the looms pre-installed.

2. Occupancy will either need to be coded out (NCS or something) or use a bypass. Mines an 03 and had the sensor, didn't like the facelift seats and for ease I just got it coded out. I had a bypass but obviously this way is a neater/cleaner solution. If they're so strict that they look under the car seat? I'd say that's pretty over the top! Then I guess you'll need to get it coded out?

3. Seat belt pretensioner will come off, straight forward swap. I'm not sure if they're even different but I'd swap them over. Mine were much cleaner (better condition) than the facelift seat pretensioners.

If they're as rare as you say, then go for it. They will physically fit and make the cabin look better as well as feel when you drive. All the above can be sorted with some time

 

[tomrdy]

...

2. Occupancy will either need to be coded out (NCS or something) or use a bypass. Mines an 03 and had the sensor, didn't like the facelift seats and for ease I just got it coded out. I had a bypass but obviously this way is a neater/cleaner solution. If they're so strict that they look under the car seat? I'd say that's pretty over the top! Then I guess you'll need to get it coded out?

...

If they're as rare as you say, then go for it. They will physically fit and make the cabin look better as well as feel when you drive. All the above can be sorted with some time

It's probably just myself being paranoid. I read on one of the local car forums that it can potentially void your insurance in an accident if somehow they find you had a bypass on an airbag/safety piece all anecdote though. I guess you could argue that the bypass doesn't STOP the airbag - simply forces it ON.

Indeed they are quite rare! Z4M's are only a handful going around so the seats themselves are near impossible to find. Hmm...

 

[kis]

If you're going down the bypass I'm sure you can be inventive and find somewhere tucked out of the way to hide it :wink: lol
It's a bypass, not a airbag preventer. If it did stop the airbag thats a different story. As I understand it, the bypass reads as a occupant always present (but keeps the dash light off) so will always deploy even if theres no passenger.

 

[Monaco84]

Occupacy: You can buy a pre-facelift seat occupancy matt FOR M-Seats from BMW (in Germany around 110€).
You can swap the existing FL seat matt with the preFL seat matt.
After that it's plug and play. No Coding, no bypassing, no emulator.

I also have a spare pre-fl seat matt from an M-Seat. Send a PM if you like...

Please note that this does NOT work with your non-M-Seat Matt.

Heating: If you had seat heating in your non-m-seats, it's plug/play

Seat belt retainer: always use the one from YOUR car.

kind regards
Patrick

 

[tomrdy]

Odd thing guys, I've just picked up my wife from work and tried to test out my occupancy sensors... I don't think I have any??

There's a dash light that comes up when I start the car for seat belt but as we were leaving the parking lot, I asked her to purposely take off her seatbelt (we still just crawling around dw!) and there was no chime, no dash light, no nothing???

*Note: I do have the line for the reversing chime disconnected - maybe that's the seatbelt chime as well?

 

[tomrdy]

Occupacy: You can buy a pre-facelift seat occupancy matt FOR M-Seats from BMW (in Germany around 110€).
You can swap the existing FL seat matt with the preFL seat matt.
After that it's plug and play. No Coding, no bypassing, no emulator.

I also have a spare pre-fl seat matt from an M-Seat. Send a PM if you like...

Please note that this does NOT work with your non-M-Seat Matt.

Heating: If you had seat heating in your non-m-seats, it's plug/play

Seat belt retainer: always use the one from YOUR car.

kind regards
Patrick

Thanks for the info Patrick! Will keep in mind that you have a spare mat

 

[kis]

I also have a spare pre-fl seat matt from an M-Seat. Send a PM if you like...

Can't get my head around this. You have a pre-facelift seat matt from an M seat? How is that possible? I didn't think M was available as a pre-facelift? :?

 

[gannet]

I also have a spare pre-fl seat matt from an M-Seat. Send a PM if you like...

Can't get my head around this. You have a pre-facelift seat matt from an M seat? How is that possible? I didn't think M was available as a pre-facelift? :?

Was introduced Apr 2004 in the Prefacelift cars (mine had them )

 

[maxman]

I fitted heated m seats to mine and used one of these.Had no problems.They were facelift to my pre facelift.

 

[NickDE]

Odd thing guys, I've just picked up my wife from work and tried to test out my occupancy sensors... I don't think I have any??

There's a dash light that comes up when I start the car for seat belt but as we were leaving the parking lot, I asked her to purposely take off her seatbelt (we still just crawling around dw!) and there was no chime, no dash light, no nothing???

On my Z4C it takes about 30 secs to a minute to a minute to activate. I found this when I sometimes put my heavy breifcase on the passenger seat, and the car reads this an occupant with no seat belt. If I then move it to the floor the thing keeps beeping along with a warning light on the dash for about 5 minutes.

 

[tomrdy]

Odd thing guys, I've just picked up my wife from work and tried to test out my occupancy sensors... I don't think I have any??

There's a dash light that comes up when I start the car for seat belt but as we were leaving the parking lot, I asked her to purposely take off her seatbelt (we still just crawling around dw!) and there was no chime, no dash light, no nothing???

On my Z4C it takes about 30 secs to a minute to a minute to activate. I found this when I sometimes put my heavy breifcase on the passenger seat, and the car reads this an occupant with no seat belt. If I then move it to the floor the thing keeps beeping along with a warning light on the dash for about 5 minutes.

Just tested it again this morning. This time at cruising speed and also 5-10 mins into the drive.

Nothing! No light, no chime for either passenger or driver... :|

There is definitely a seatbelt light when I turn on ignition that goes off once the car is started though. Any ideas?

Don't mind if there's no sensor no chime or light as long as all the safety stuff will still deploy.

 

[tomrdy]

Had a look under the seat. This is the sensor unit right?

 

[kis]

That's the module, different to the seat matt (that's the actual sensor)

 

[Monaco84]

Can't get my head around this. You have a pre-facelift seat matt from an M seat? How is that possible? I didn't think M was available as a pre-facelift?

You could order normal M-Seats (not Z4M-Seats) mit Oregon Leather or New England Leather for your normal Z4 starting 2004. 8)

 

[Monaco84]

Had a look under the seat. This is the sensor unit right?

Prefacelift: Sensor Matt + separate Module
Facelift: Sensor Matt INCL. built-in Module