Hi guys, your forum is fantastic help! I'm actually going to be replacing several parts on my mother's X-type, and would love any advice you could offer. First on the list is to replace the front seats with higher-option seats (hopefully the easiest of the replacements!) I have a few questions that would be very helpful to have answers before I start tearing anything apart:


1. Does anyone have a pictorial available for seat removal? I'd love to go into this without any surprises.

2. Same for the dash - at least the upper part above the radio where the heated switches go.

3. Are the wiring harnesses the same? Is this plug and play (fingers crossed!)? What kind of wiring will I need to add if not? Anything I'm not thinking of electrical-wise that may throw a monkey wrench in this plan?

Thank you so much for any help you can offer! I'll take pics and post up my experience if I get any interest in this project to give back to the forum. Not sure how many x-type owners there are in the region, but I'll also (hopefully!) soon have a cream leather (code NED) 6 way power driver seat and manual passenger seat for a smoking deal for local pick-up if anyone is interested.

Future projects: replace trunk lid (part already sourced), replace roof panel (part already sourced), hail dent removal, repair/replace hood.

Thanks!

 

04X-Type3.0, as for the wiring harness, it should be there. The only "caution" I will tell you is to make sure you get the seats with the seat module still attached to the seat. There is a module that controls the seat heater. Without it, the heated seats are not going to heat.

As for the dash, you have to remove the ash tray first, then you can slide the radio out of the way (held in place with screws behind the ash tray assembly). From there, you can access the area for the switches to control the seat heaters. Don't forget you will also need to add in 4 fuses to make this all work.

On a side note, do you have an early 2004 car or a later version. Why do I ask? If the car is made after March 2004, you have a different wiring harness in the car than the 2003. So, this can make plugging the seat modules in a little more difficult. There is the same wiring for both years, but I can't garantee the plugs are identical. But, atleast Pin 1 is the same between the years, pin 2 is the same, etc.

Also, are the seats part of the memory option. The memory seats have a different module than the non-memory seats. So, another thing to keep an eye out for.

Oh yeah, welcome to the forums. I think you will find a lot of very useful information here and tons of people willing to assist you. So, stick around, post up your experiences and questions and respond back to other's posts when you have something to contribute. But, we do ask 1 thing though: stop by the new member section and tell us a little bit about yourself. Contrary to what some people think, this group is very friendly and we like to get to know each other. May even find it a bit beneficial to yourself too.

 

Thermo, thanks for all of the helpful info! Our '04 was purchased new in October '03, so the wiring harness should be identical, which would be great. The seats came out of the donor car with everything attached, so that should be fine too. Can you tell me a bit more about the 4 fuses? Are they all just prewired, but currently empty slots in the fusebox?

As far as the memory seat situation goes, it is something I don't know at all. I do know our '04 does not have the memory seat option, but I have no idea if the '03 did. What should I look out for? Will this cause problems I need to work around?

I'll definitely document my progress and post them here in case anyone else is interested in a similar swap. Thanks for the info, and I'm off to the new member section to introduce myself!

 

Perhaps this thread might help a bit.
I retrofitted an electric passenger front seat into mine using a right-hand-drive drivers seat.

 

04X-Type3.0, you need to look at 3 fuses (not 4 like I was initially thinking). You need to look at F66 and F70. These provide the main power to the seats as they are powered directly off of the battery. They are each 30 amp fuses. Before you install a fuse into these spots, use a flashlight to look down into the space where the fuse goes and make sure that you can see silver on both sides. If you don't see silver on one side, but you do on the other, then the wiring harness is not in the car for the heated seats and additional work will be needed.

The third fuse is fuse F77 which is 7.5A. This is the switchable power to the seats which is what tells them to turn off when you shut off the car. Again, look in the fuse slot and verify that you have connectors on both sides of the fuse.

If you don't have the wiring, let me know and I will tell you what needs to be done to make it all work. This may involve running to the junkyard to get the correct plugs for the seat modules as without those plugs, this becomes a lot harder modification and way more likely to have issues in the future.

 

Thanks to the prep research I did on the forums here, the awesome advice I got in this thread, and a TON of luck, the seats are in and work perfectly.

First, I went off and bought the first seats I found in the right color. NEVER, ever do this. Do some research and find a seat that is your year and wiring. I miraculously, and accidentally, bought seats that were correct. If I hadn't, this project would've been dead in the water.

Sunny and 34 degrees Fahrenheit. Who could ask for more?



To remove the seats, do not disconnect the battery until the seats are unbolted to the point you don't need to move them any more. Power seats don't move when you've got the power disconnected!

Slide the seats forward all of the way, and unbolt the 4 bolts to the rear of the seat. This is also when you should unbolt the seatbelt from the seat! I didn't do that, and it ended up taking me 10x longer to get them out with no power to adjust the seat to get stuff out of the way to get to the bolt.




After taking out all of the rear bolts, adjust the seat all the way to the back.

Disconnect the negative battery terminal. I read on here someplace to wait 20 minutes before disconnecting the seats, so this is when I went and got the new seats and organized my tools.



Remove front bolts and pull out seats.




I zip-tied the seatbelts to the door latches to prevent them from rolling up too far. I've heard many horror stories about letting the seatbelts go all the way in, and wanted to avoid that hassle.



After both seats are out, I started on replacing the switches in the dash. To add the heated seat switches, I removed the panel around the shifter.



Removed the face of the emergency flasher switch.



Unscrewed and removed the ashtray.



Unscrewed the four bolts holding the stereo/HVAC to the dash to slide it out about 2 inches.



Unscrewed and replaced the emergency flasher only panel with the new panel that included the heated seat switches.





To put everything back, I just reversed the order I took everything off, including just plugging in the wiring harnesses.



And viola! Without any other work, the power seats, lumbar, and heat all work flawlessly! I have a blinking airbag light on the dash that will need to be investigated, but other than that, it was a totally plug-and-play replacement. Again, I'd really like to thank Thermo and Cambo351 for their help and advice. Going in with a plan made all of the difference in the world.

 

Looks like it is code 15... And I have no earthly idea how I'm going to fix this. Suggestions?

 

Well done! But I thought we might have had a chance to talk about it a little more before you went & did it....

The problem you have now is that the weight sensor in the passenger seat is not coded to the Restraint Control Module.

I was going to suggest that you need to swap the weight sensor out of your old seat into the new one, but it's a little late for that...

It can be re-coded by the WDS/IDS/SSD diagnostics system (i.e. a dealer or independant garage) not sure how convenient that is for you.

 

Thanks , I will add this into the FAQ

 

Cambo351 - I thought we'd talk about it a bit more too! But the weather was perfect, and without a heated garage, who am I to argue with nature?

I still have the old seats and modules, so I might swap out the modules if another nice day shows up with nothing on the schedule before the next visit to the dealership. Thanks for the great info!

 

No it's not a module, it's the actual liquid-filled sensor which is in between the metal plate & the foam cushion. The only "module" in the seat is for the heater, and that's nothing to do with the airbag. You have to change the sensor over.


The seat cover clips into the edge of the metal base using tension. To remove it is easy if you start at one of the tensioner strip edges. For later cars they are indicated by the white arrows above, for earlier cars refer to the yellow arrow.


This picture is so you can see the tension strips once loose.


This photo is just showing the passenger weight sensor. It is a fluid pressure-based system so it doesn't matter where in the seat you sit it will still register it. So you don't want to cut or pierce it!

Pictures & text courtesy of x-dave.

 

Ahhhhh! It looks like a reprogramming is definitely in my future. I'd swap a module, but that looks like a whole other animal. I'd probably cause more trouble than I'd solve! I've got a local mechanic that I think has the correct equipment, so if he can do the reprogramming, it will be much easier than the swap.

 

Resurrecting an old thread.

Trying to remove the driver's seat but I'm stuck on removing the seat belt bolt from the seat itself. Unless there is a trick I'm not figuring out, I can't get clearance to access the bolt with a wrench, it's blocked by the seat frame. I see in the picture above you've somehow managed to do it...and JTIS doesn't mention anything special...so what the heck am I missing??? It's driving me crazy.

Help.