Baby BMW Forum banner

Retrofit E Series Seats to F Series Cars

27K views 19 replies 11 participants last post by  Seathack 
#1 ·
Hi All,

This is a how to for fitting E series seats to F series cars, in this guide I will be fitting E series M Performance Bucket seats into a 2016 F22 M235i.

You will need:
T50 Torx key or socket
9mm socket
2x 1.6x50 Flat-Blade Screwdriver
Spare female F series seat wiring loom (can be purchased from Cotswold BMW)
Patience

Firstly familiarise yourself with the two different types of socket housings and the pins inside them, the M235i seats are not electrically adjustable which is perfect for fitting the M performance buckets, the wiring in the connector blocks will be different depending on what seats you have installed in your BMW, make sure you are fully aware of what wire does what before proceeding. It's not my responsibility if you damage your vehicle in any way.

Right disclaimer over here are the two connector blocks.

E Series

F Series

1: The first step is to prep your E series seats, lay them on their backs and remove the E series socket from the seat frame, this is done by pushing in the two plastic clips and sliding the socket backward.

2: Once out of the seat frame it is easier to work on, next what you want to do is release the airbag, seatbelt pre-tensioner, occupancy sensor and/or heating connectors from the socket housing. Take a note of what colour wire went in what position before removing them. Take a pic or make a note, I don't care how you do it but just make sure you do :D To do this take your two flat-blade screwdrivers and insert them into the release catches located below. Then use your finger on the inside of the socket housing to gently push the connectors out of the side of the socket housing.

3: Once the connectors have been removed you can store the E series socket housing as this is no longer required, you should now still have the two grey connectors and the larger black connector attached to the seat wiring, like in the images below. The eagle eyed among you will notice I bent a pin here.

4: Now we will start the process of removing the pins from the connector, it is really important you take your time here as any error will set you back additional pins and time to fit them. It is really important you take a note of what colour wire went in what position before removing them. Take a pic or make a note, I don't care how you do it but just make sure you do :D
To remove the pins insert your flat-blade screwdriver into the slots in the image below, while applying light pressure with the screwdriver gently pull the wire until the pin releases from the connector.
Once complete you should be free of all connector and socket blocks on the E series seat like in the image below.

5: Once complete you should be free of all connector and socket blocks on the E series seat like in the image below.

6: Now take your spare female F series loom, we are only interested in one part of it and that is the big yellow socket housing.

7: Cut off the cable tie holding the wiring and the backing plate together

8: Insert your flat-blade screwdriver under the backing plate at the point in the picture below to release it from the socket housing to slide off

9: Again take a note of what colour wire went in what position before removing them. Take a pic or make a note, I don't care how you do it but just make sure you do :D
Now the backing plate is off you should see how many wires you will need to remove from the socket housing. You need to remove them as you will be inserting the E series pins into the F series block, the pins are removed in the same way as before by pushing in the tabs while gently pulling on the cable. You can discard the rest of the loom once you have separated the connector block.
Now using the notes/pics you took in part 2 of the wire colours etc. plug the E series pins into the F series socket housing, no tool is required here, they just push into position with a click. It is really important you match the colours here as failure to do so will result in god only knows what kind of electrical mess/short/nuclear catastrophe! On my loom a few of the colours were different but google is your friend here, the image above is before and the image below is after I completed the repinning. The only two you cannot complete are the grey plugs as we have not got the connectors to plug them into yet, we will fix this in the next steps.

10: Time to remove the seats from your F series car as we now need these to donor the blue (airbag) and white (seat-belt sensor & tension) connectors for the F series socket housing. Firstly disconnect your battery using the 9mm socket, once all power has been drained undo the seat connectors attaching the seat to the cars electronics, grab your T50 torx and undo the four torx bolts holding your seats to the chassis, you may need to slide the seat back and forwards to reveal them. Now carefully remove them without scratching anything.

11: Now repeat the above steps but on the F series connector on the seats you just removed. Remember you are removing the socket housing from the seat frame, removing the connectors and removing the pins (remember to take notes/pics of the wire/pin positions) so all you are left with are the empty blue and white connectors from the donor. Although the connectors are a different shape the way you remove the connectors/pins remains unchanged.

12: Now you have the blue and white sockets separated from the original seat wiring, use the notes/pictures that you took of the original E series airbag, seatbelt pre-tensioner, occupancy sensor and/or heating connectors in part 2 to repin them with the E series pins, there is only one way the pins fit into the socket housing, so don't just bung them in any old hole! The images below are of the completed repinned sockets.

13: Once you have repinned the blue and white sockets push the blue (airbag) connector into the yellow socket housing on the seats you want to fit followed by the white (seat-belt) connector, push until a click is heard. The finished article should look exactly like the original F series connector you started with.

14: Now all you need to do is fit your E series seats into your car and reconnect the plugs and battery and you should be away without any problems!
Feel free to drop me a PM if you get stuck or something doesn't make sense.
 
See less See more
#7 ·
PearceHD said:
bluebro said:
Have you got the seat heaters to work?
Nope they were an option I didn't spec, will find out if possible when I meet my friend who is a senior mech at Sytner. I'm pretty sure it's possible from looking at the wiring.
I see, my car had heated seats and I know that all BMWP seats have seat heaters but the F series loom had larger spade terminals and 2 modules fitted as opposed to the E series 1 module for seat heating.

I just didn't want to go there, happy to have the seats in the car as is. :thumbs:
 
#8 ·
bluebro said:
PearceHD said:
bluebro said:
Have you got the seat heaters to work?
Nope they were an option I didn't spec, will find out if possible when I meet my friend who is a senior mech at Sytner. I'm pretty sure it's possible from looking at the wiring.
I see, my car had heated seats and I know that all BMWP seats have seat heaters but the F series loom had larger spade terminals and 2 modules fitted as opposed to the E series 1 module for seat heating.

I just didn't want to go there, happy to have the seats in the car as is. :thumbs:
I haven't seen a heated F series loom yet so would be interested to see the difference and what can be done :thumbs:
 
#9 ·
Great work and awesome detailed write up :thumbs:

I've been a lurker here for some time, using thread info on the various BMW brembo brake set ups to install F30 brembo brakes to my E46, but this is my first post.

I'm currently investigating the possibility of installing F30 series seats into my E46. In the following picture by PearceHD, by connecting up 12v to the thicker red and brown/red wire, is it possible to check if all the motors are working in the seats??



I've already bought the connector below, hoping to connect up to a pair of seats I'm planning on checking out next week, and will prob be useful for the install as well.

 
#10 ·
Just a small update, i got my hands on electric F32 seats with adjustable side bolsters. incase anyone in the future was interested, the thickest red and brown wires are positive and negative to all electric motors except side bolsters (in my case the red was actually a red/blue wire). The red wire to the right hand side of the connector below is +12v for the side bolsters.



Next i need to swap over seat belt pretensioners, (dont think i can use the f32 ones), blank off the blue seat airbag connector, and possibly install a passenger seat occupancy bypass sensor as the signals/voltages may be different from e46 to F30

Lasty the seat rail bolt pattern is slightly off, so that 2 bolts either the left or right side dont line up, i knew this beforehand and just requires a long adapter plate, someone on bimmerforums put e90 seats in an e46 and did the same.

Fingers crossed I'll be finished within a month or two
 
#12 ·
Exactly what I needed! Just fitted bmw
Perf seats into my m235i and currently have the air bag fault on.

Anyone have part number for the F series wiring loom as per above please ??

Alternatively, any reason why I couldn't take out the existing plug off my M235i seats and then return back down the line ?
 
#13 ·
Rajvosa said:
Exactly what I needed! Just fitted bmw
Perf seats into my m235i and currently have the air bag fault on.

Anyone have part number for the F series wiring loom as per above please ??

Alternatively, any reason why I couldn't take out the existing plug off my M235i seats and then return back down the line ?
I put E chassis seats into an E chassis car and had to code them before the light would go off, Id be surprised if its not the same issue youre having.
 
#14 ·
docwra said:
Rajvosa said:
Exactly what I needed! Just fitted bmw
Perf seats into my m235i and currently have the air bag fault on.

Anyone have part number for the F series wiring loom as per above please ??

Alternatively, any reason why I couldn't take out the existing plug off my M235i seats and then return back down the line ?
I put E chassis seats into an E chassis car and had to code them before the light would go off, Id be surprised if its not the same issue youre having.
my issue is the seats arent plugged in at the moment... F series and E series connectors done match so i have to do this Diy
 
#18 ·
Hello all,

I'm building a 1970 Camaro pro touring car and would like to install 2017 BMW M4 convertible seats into it.

I'm hoping someone here can help me identify what wires does what, my goal is to keep as much original functionality that the seat came with and disconnecting anything related to the airbag system.
 

Attachments

This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top