Iteration8
New member
I ended up doing the electric seat retrofit pulling from multiple forums and wanted to post how I was able to do it. my car is a 2006 z4 with manual/heated seats and integrated the Msport heated and electric seats. I also went to a yard and pulled the entire wiring harness from the fuse box to seat pigtails from a prefacelift with both heated and electric seats. In the end I took 2 wires per seat from the harness. I'll try and put as much detail as I can about the process with the pictures I have. But also assuming you already know how to remove the seats. And this is not for memory function, its only to allow the ability to adjust the seats.
First DISCONNECT THE BATTERY, we'll be taking the fuse box and passenger airbag out to get to the plugs.
Both the driver and passenger side have this piece you have to pull forcefully off to get underneath the carpeting.
Driver side
A couple screws in the footwell to remove the paneling
A couple more screws 1 for the hood latch and 2 more for the side kick panel, remove the kick panel
another screw for the carpeting to remove
a single bolt for the accelerator pedal, if I remember correctly slightly pull up and out for the pedal, careful not to pull to hard as to not break the wiring.
For the more difficult part, I pulled the fuse box out to get to the correct plugs
You'll first need to take the glovebox off, mine kind falls out so you'll need to figure that one out.
Once that is out these 4 bolts hold the inside paneling but also the passenger side airbag.
There are 4 of these clips that are holding the airbag from dropping down
I pried the clips off with a little flathead and reattached them later. but pretty sure you can pull the airbag out with enough force
I ended up having to take the front of the dashboard off and the side vent/cupholder to pry the clips off
Once the airbag panel you'll be able to see these 2 screws that hold the fusebox. remove the purpleish connector, this is where the wires will go.
Yellow plug is seat connector. Purple is to the fusebox. The sides of the connectors have the pin numbers on them. The seat connectors are pretty identical. Hopefully the pictures help. Purple fusebox pin 10 goes to Yellow Driver seat pin 13. Purple fusebox pin 5 connects to yellow passenger pin 13. Both yellow seat pin 14 pin are grounds.
As for where the I set the grounds, I attached them to these boxes
You can snake the driver side wires behind the dashboard and underneath the carpet fairly easily. The passenger side carpet doesn't really pull up, its kind of glued down so follow the preexisting harness to the seat connector.
Criticize how it was done especially if its a safety concern or how it was written, I'm planning on doing a retrofit for integrating heated seats into another car and wouldn't mind some to better the post.
First DISCONNECT THE BATTERY, we'll be taking the fuse box and passenger airbag out to get to the plugs.
Both the driver and passenger side have this piece you have to pull forcefully off to get underneath the carpeting.
Driver side
A couple screws in the footwell to remove the paneling
A couple more screws 1 for the hood latch and 2 more for the side kick panel, remove the kick panel
another screw for the carpeting to remove
a single bolt for the accelerator pedal, if I remember correctly slightly pull up and out for the pedal, careful not to pull to hard as to not break the wiring.
For the more difficult part, I pulled the fuse box out to get to the correct plugs
You'll first need to take the glovebox off, mine kind falls out so you'll need to figure that one out.
Once that is out these 4 bolts hold the inside paneling but also the passenger side airbag.
There are 4 of these clips that are holding the airbag from dropping down
I pried the clips off with a little flathead and reattached them later. but pretty sure you can pull the airbag out with enough force
I ended up having to take the front of the dashboard off and the side vent/cupholder to pry the clips off
Once the airbag panel you'll be able to see these 2 screws that hold the fusebox. remove the purpleish connector, this is where the wires will go.
Yellow plug is seat connector. Purple is to the fusebox. The sides of the connectors have the pin numbers on them. The seat connectors are pretty identical. Hopefully the pictures help. Purple fusebox pin 10 goes to Yellow Driver seat pin 13. Purple fusebox pin 5 connects to yellow passenger pin 13. Both yellow seat pin 14 pin are grounds.
As for where the I set the grounds, I attached them to these boxes
You can snake the driver side wires behind the dashboard and underneath the carpet fairly easily. The passenger side carpet doesn't really pull up, its kind of glued down so follow the preexisting harness to the seat connector.
Criticize how it was done especially if its a safety concern or how it was written, I'm planning on doing a retrofit for integrating heated seats into another car and wouldn't mind some to better the post.