is swapping seats plug and play?

[stocktree]

Here's wiring for canbus.
I'd suggest getting wiring pins from a salvage car. It will be a lot easier than trying to crimp those small terminals. The pins are very common throughout the car on multiple bmw generations. I grabbed some harness ends from an e60 and e46 at a salvage yard. Grab the under seat harnesses would probably be easiest. Same pin but two different styles are used. Insulated and uninsulated. The insulated pin has the round rubber seal. Though you can put an uninsulated pin in the same hole.
The r2 canbus is in back. There is a wiring track that goes along the passenger rear floor and sill, to the front seats. Pretty easy to get to.
I ended up just paying someone to program remotely, so I can't help you there. Let me know if you want headrest wiring.

[Turhapuro]

Thank you very much, stocktree. I feel I am being a bit thick asking as with this it might be completely clear to someone a bit more advanced based on this info already. But anyway, do I understand correctly that the red and blue wire in the last picture are the ones you added and from those wired all the way to R2 in the back? Which pins would these splice to in the R2 connector, there are circles on 1,13,14,26 there?

Do I also understand correctly that no rearranging of any pins was needed? Just adding 2 pins/wires for CAN? For some reason I thought the power supply pins for eg would be different between comfort and standard seats.

[stocktree]

I should have been more clear.
The picture is not the pins you'll be putting on for canbus. Its the only pic I had on my phone that showed the backside of the pins. I was trying to show how they looked and the difference between round and square opening for pins.
And on the connectors I just circled the embossed numbers to point out that the pins are numbered. From there you count over appropriately to the required slot.
See pic example of slot 5 and 6 for canbus on the x12 or x14 connector. That's where you add the pins and wire to go to the rear at r2.

[stocktree]

And here is where you'll put pins in r2 connector at the rear.

[Turhapuro]

Thank you very much for your efforts stocktree. So just to confirm that I got it;
Pin 5 (CAN-L) of X12 goes to Pin 5 on R2
Pin 6 (CAN-H) of X12 goes to Pin 6 on R2

These are then "bridged" to X14 Pins 5 and 6 correspondingly.

What goes to pins 18 and 19 in the R2 connector then?

[stocktree]

Let me try to make it more clear.
See attached pic. It shows where to connect.
You'll run 2 wires from r2 to each seat. Technically you could run 2 wires to one seat and jumper over from there to the other seat. But from factory the canbus wires would go from each seat all the way to back to the r2 connector.
R2-5 > x14-6
R2-18 > x14-5
R2-6 > x12-6
R2-19 > x12-5

[Turhapuro]

Thank you for your patience with me stocktree, it's greatly appreciated. I think I finally got it. So I take it that there are no other changes needed for the connectors and the info that I read elsewhere about +12v and ground connections being different between standard and comfort seats was false?

[stocktree]

Originally Posted by Turhapuro

Thank you for your patience with me stocktree, it's greatly appreciated. I think I finally got it. So I take it that there are no other changes needed for the connectors and the info that I read elsewhere about +12v and ground connections being different between standard and comfort seats was false?

Like I said before, standard seats have two main power wires, because heat seating is separate. Standard seat don't have control module. It has some smaller control box for motor function.
Comfort seats have the control module and seat heating power comes from the control module.

If you want to double check. Disconnect your battery, reach under the front of seat, and unplug the yellow connector. Look at the pins in the male connector on your current seat, then look at the pins on your new seats. See what is different, then look at the female connector and look if there are wires in those pin locations, that you need for the new seats. If you see wires missing, look up what they're for.

[stocktree]

Here are pictures of difference between my old and new passenger seat.
My old seat is the one with the grey wire connector. That's power for seat heating. New seat don't use that power source, so the grey connector is not there. And you can see the other 4 small pins that I needed to add.

[Turhapuro]

[QUOTE=stocktree;30372176If you see wires missing, look up what they're for.[/QUOTE]

That's one of the challenges I am having, I could not find the connector pinouts on ISTA+. Will need to spend more time with it and maybe try to find a VIN of a car with comfort seats to get the connector pinouts.

[Turhapuro]

I am sure the people keeping an eye on this thread find it hilarious that I've had the seats for 3 months almost, and still haven't installed them. But yeah, it seems very seldom that I both have a window of time that the car could remain undriven for a few days, and my garage would be empty of other projects so I could do this. In the end it also took a while sourcing those pins, I ended up ordering some new ones. But now I have them.

I took off the rear seat yesterday to figure out how I should route the CAN wires from driver's and passenger's side to the R2 connector in the trunk. I tried to make another post to ask about it with no luck, so I would be very pleased if someone here would just give me a hint on where I should expect to be able to route the wires so I don't demolish too much of the interior for no reason. So is it something like the attached drawing or is there another path?

Does the carpet need to come off inside the car to access the channel for the wire? What about in the trunk?

[stocktree]

Follow the blue line. It's very easy. And there is a wire track already there. Remove side cover on trunk. Remove rear upper seat side piece. Couple screws then lift up to remove. Also remove rear plastic door threshold. It just snaps in. Then lift carpet a bit and you'll see the wire track. Now to get to the left front seat, either try to fish wire under the center console, or maybe go along under rear seat to other side?

[Turhapuro]

Thank you stocktree👍👍 I think once I finally get this done, I will post a writeup of the process so the next person doing this will have all of your advice (and that from others) in one place👍

[Turhapuro]

I had to walk back home today. I installed the drivers seat, but it would not move at all so couldnt screw in the front bolts, and the seat position is pretty much undriveable. I struggled to find the r2 connector as it turned out it wasn't the one I thought it was. With help from a friend I learned that the R2 connects to terminating resistor. Thus I imagine one side of it is all kcan2 lo and the other is all kcan2 hi?

According to previous posts the drivers seat should move even without CAN, but it doesn't. It doesn't move with CAN connected either. Could coding solve it or is something else wrong?

Can anyone advice how I could find the exact body-side connector pinouts for:
-car with comfort seats
-car with standard (EU, non-sport) half-electric seats with heating

I can't come up with the correct search on TIS or on rheingold.

[stocktree]

I think the seat module needs canbus connected to wake up possibly? Did you end up running those wires properly?
The r2 connection point is a small black piece behind the fuses. It's basically just a splitter for the canbus signal.

[Turhapuro]

Originally Posted by stocktree

I think the seat module needs canbus connected to wake up possibly? Did you end up running those wires properly?
The r2 connection point is a small black piece behind the fuses. It's basically just a splitter for the canbus signal.

Yes, I didnt expect the R2 to be a terminating connector and therefore at first it didnt make sense to me that it was connected to "nothing" behind the fuse box rather than below it to the left as it's pictured in TIS.

I now measured the CAN pins resistance at the drivers seat and its 61.9ohms, which tells me that it should be connected properly (according to web resources the resistance is around 60ohms) and there's continuity. I did try connecting the pins the other way around at the seat, but that didn't change anything.

Ofcourse there is also the possibility that I was sold non-working comfort seats. It's too bad that I couldn't find a working ESYS to try coding myself, I figured there's not much point paying bimmerutility 100€ if I can get the coding done by a pro for much less than that. The only problem is I have to drive 40km to get to him, and unless I swap the old seat back, I cannot drive the car.

[stocktree]

The seats have the module on them right?

[Turhapuro]

Thanks for bearing with me stocktree. I did succeed in the end. I paid a local guy for some help on the connector and coding. Turns out CAN wasn't the only thing missing from my x14 and x12 connector, they also needed +12v on pin1. This guy told me though that I needed to add ground to pin14 as well, but the drivers seat controls worked backwards and in the end we figured out that pin14 is grounded only on the passenger seat, and that ground pin actually indicates to the car which one is the passenger seat (lhd/rhd).

But yes, in the end I finally got it done. I still need to clean up the x14 connector, remove the unneeded grounding pin altogether etc and install the rest of the covers, but I've already driven a few hundred kilometers with the comfort seats, and it was worth it. But next time I will definitely buy one with comfort seats from factory rather than go the retrofit route... For me, for a daily driver, it's too difficult to make the time to get such a retrofit done.

[Lush335]

Hi stocktree, what seats did you originally have? The base US/Canada 459 seats like the one on the right?

[stocktree]

Yes. I had the seat on the right originally. And my comfort seat looks like the left seat.
....
If you have cracking on the lower seat covers, it can be swapped with the other seat. Takes a bit of work, but the left and right seat covers are identical. You'd need hog ring pliers to attach covers.

[Lush335]

Actually, I'm new to this thread, but I've been following it for awhile. I'm doing the same upgrade as you but it seems you had to run new wires for active head restraints (in addition to the CAN wires)?. I thought those base 459 seats also had active head restraints...is it possible the pins for the head restraints are just in a different spot on the Comfort seats?

I checked my VIN on realoem and it lists two different "Repair kit, crash-active head restraint", one I assume is for the base 459 seat and one for the 456 comfort seat.

[stocktree]

Originally Posted by Lush335

Actually, I'm new to this thread, but I've been following it for awhile. I'm doing the same upgrade as you but it seems you had to run new wires for active head restraints (in addition to the CAN wires)?. I thought those base 459 seats also had active head restraints...is it possible the pins for the head restraints are just in a different spot on the Comfort seats?

I checked my VIN on realoem and it lists two different "Repair kit, crash-active head restraint", one I assume is for the base 459 seat and one for the 456 comfort seat.

The base seats as pictured on the right, definitely don't have the active head restraint. And usually don't have the wires in place from factory.
I think realoem.com always shows all options. It doesn't show vin specific options from my experience.