I really wanted ///M seats from the day I purchased the Z4. Somehow they seemed the ‘right’ seats Vs the much more armchair like sports seats. I recently sat in a model in the dealers upgraded to M seats and steering wheel and it felt a world different, so my decision was made.
Next up was the desire to go ‘red’ - Dream Red to be exact as having Sterling Grey paint I though it would really set it off and felt the black on black interior was a bit too Germanic and dare I say Audi/VW/Porshe like.
I also love the electric memory seats. I share the drive with my wife and we have the seat in very different positions, so the fully automatic on key opening is a joy. We’ve had it on the X5 and it makes our lives so easy.
Finally - heated seats. It’s cold in England at times and again the good lady loves heated seats. Roof down too it’s a great help as I can at least keep one side warm
The biggest issues here were:
1) ///M seats from BMW were out of the question due to £££’s
2) Dream Red ‘M’ seats on the second hand market are rarer than hens teeth
3) Electric, memory, heated, red, ///M – well I’d be waiting for ever…
So I decided to make my own.
Firstly a bit of luck and I managed to buy some mint condition 2005 Dream Red ///M seats….wow
The next stage was looking through the online parts catalogues it became apparent that there were many common components, so it seemed likely that I could do some switching around to make what I wanted.
So here we go:
Take my pair of 2003 electric sport seats – dismantle them
Backs off
Wiring loom out, pads sensors, etc.
Trim off
Squabs and pan base off
Take a pair of ///M manual seats – dismantle them to the same level
Stir it all around on the floor a bit and start to rebuild from the components
Manual base
Memory electric base
Add the red squab, pan bases and backs onto the electric bases (It was fairly easy once I knew how, but I made hard work of it as had no idea what I would have to dismantle, had not done it before and the TIS is not really designed to support this sort of dismantling work)
This gave me my new seats and I rebuilt remainder into a perfect set of black, sport, manual, heated, seats.
The end result is I have ‘///M’ sport seats, heated, electric, memory, in Dream Red - something that I doubt I could acquire otherwise.
New control panel
Interestingly the weight difference is minimal as the only extra weight is 4 motors/actuators, less the manual controls. I did some weighing and estimate I added a total of 10kg to the car.
I perhaps just need to change or recover the door cards to complete the transformation, but they are serious £££’s new, so we wait or find a local upholsterer.
The look IMHO is outstanding against the grey paint and dark leather/brushed aluminium interior and driving pleasure a quantum leap forward.
The end result
Now all I need is the MFSW to arrive and I’m almost finished (for now)
Post script – the error I made is to move the car with the passenger seat out. This triggered and airbag warning that required BMW to reset the system
Next up was the desire to go ‘red’ - Dream Red to be exact as having Sterling Grey paint I though it would really set it off and felt the black on black interior was a bit too Germanic and dare I say Audi/VW/Porshe like.
I also love the electric memory seats. I share the drive with my wife and we have the seat in very different positions, so the fully automatic on key opening is a joy. We’ve had it on the X5 and it makes our lives so easy.
Finally - heated seats. It’s cold in England at times and again the good lady loves heated seats. Roof down too it’s a great help as I can at least keep one side warm
The biggest issues here were:
1) ///M seats from BMW were out of the question due to £££’s
2) Dream Red ‘M’ seats on the second hand market are rarer than hens teeth
3) Electric, memory, heated, red, ///M – well I’d be waiting for ever…
So I decided to make my own.
Firstly a bit of luck and I managed to buy some mint condition 2005 Dream Red ///M seats….wow
The next stage was looking through the online parts catalogues it became apparent that there were many common components, so it seemed likely that I could do some switching around to make what I wanted.
So here we go:
Take my pair of 2003 electric sport seats – dismantle them
Backs off
Wiring loom out, pads sensors, etc.
Trim off
Squabs and pan base off
Take a pair of ///M manual seats – dismantle them to the same level
Stir it all around on the floor a bit and start to rebuild from the components
Manual base
Memory electric base
Add the red squab, pan bases and backs onto the electric bases (It was fairly easy once I knew how, but I made hard work of it as had no idea what I would have to dismantle, had not done it before and the TIS is not really designed to support this sort of dismantling work)
This gave me my new seats and I rebuilt remainder into a perfect set of black, sport, manual, heated, seats.
The end result is I have ‘///M’ sport seats, heated, electric, memory, in Dream Red - something that I doubt I could acquire otherwise.
New control panel
Interestingly the weight difference is minimal as the only extra weight is 4 motors/actuators, less the manual controls. I did some weighing and estimate I added a total of 10kg to the car.
I perhaps just need to change or recover the door cards to complete the transformation, but they are serious £££’s new, so we wait or find a local upholsterer.
The look IMHO is outstanding against the grey paint and dark leather/brushed aluminium interior and driving pleasure a quantum leap forward.
The end result
Now all I need is the MFSW to arrive and I’m almost finished (for now)
Post script – the error I made is to move the car with the passenger seat out. This triggered and airbag warning that required BMW to reset the system
I don't think there's enough material to do the job.
