Hi, Everyone-
I'm starting this thread to document my seat swap experience. There doesn't seem to be a lot of solid information out there (that I could find) other than a few threads of people who have had various luck with the swap. Most seem to get hung up on the wiring.
Original Seats:
-2005 Sport
-cloth (the black sport seat)
-manual adjustment (except power lumbar on the driver side)
-side airbags in the seats
Donor Seats:
-2006 Limited
-gray leather
-power adjustment
-side airbags in the seats
-memory seat function
-heated
I've been looking for a set of leather seats for a long time and one finally popped up at a local salvage yard. They appeared to be in really nice shape. At the time I picked them up, I didn't really pay attention to the year/trim/options of the seats. They were power, leather, and matched my interior, and that was all I really cared about. I figured I'd be able to sort out whatever wiring issues I ran into. I asked the salvage yard to cut some of the pigtail harnesses so I would have them (the wiring coming from under the seat that plugs into the seat).
After thorough cleaning the seats, I started to document the various connectors, wire colors, etc. using the factory wiring diagrams for both my 2005 and the donor 2006. My 2005 had three connectors coming up through the carpet on both the driver and passenger side.
2005 Driver Side:
1) Yellow 2-pin female connector
2) White 17-pin female connector
3) Black 4-pin female connector
2005 Passenger Side:
1) Yellow 2-pin female connector
2) White 17-pin female connector
3) Gray 6-pin female connector
To my surprise, the donor seats had the exact same connectors on the pigtails that the salvage yard had included, which indicated that the male side of the connectors under the seat bottoms would be directly compatible (even if the wiring needed to be modified).
I started with the passenger seat because I figured the wiring would be the least complicated. I unplugged my existing harnesses, unbolted the seat, and set the donor leather seat in place. I connected the 3 harnesses and discovered that:
1) Yellow connector: All airbag functions seemed to work normally. No airbag light on the dash, and the airbag indicator light near the climate control turned on/off appropriately when I was sitting in the seat. All of the wiring (pins/colors) were identical on my original seats and the donor seats.
2) Gray connector: The seatbelt buckle sensing function seemed to work normally. All of the wiring (pins/colors) were identical on my original seats and the donor seats.
3) White connector: This is where things got a little complicated. All of the pins/colors on both sides of the connector seemed to be identical, but the power sliding/reclining function on the seat did not work. This was confusing to me for a number of reasons. Given that my original seats had such limited functionality relative to the new ones, I didn't understand why all of the wiring was the same. I also didn't understand why the power functions were not working, but the seatbelt and SRS/airbag functions were working properly. This is where the trouble-shooting began.
I took out the donor seat and started to test some of the wiring on the body side of the wiring connectors. Using a multimeter, I pretty quickly discovered that the green/red wire in the white connector (pin 9) did NOT have 12V+ even though this was supposedly the wire coming from the 30A fuse for the passenger power seat (which, surprisingly, my car did have in the fuse block). Using the wiring diagrams, I determined that the green/red wire runs from the seat to a junction block in the passenger side kick panel, and from there runs to the main junction block under the steering wheel. I traced the wire from the seat to the kick panel junction box and noticed that green/red wire was NOT present between the kick panel and the main junction/fuse block. I applied 12V to the other side of the connector at the kick panel junction block and the power functions started working immediately.
I now have two options:
1) Pull another suitable 12V+ signal from somewhere else in the passenger side kick panel and use that, or;
2) Run a new wire between the kick panel and the fuse block. This would be the OEM route and the one I am likely to take. The wire will run from pin 32 of the 1J junction block (next to the fuse panel under the steering wheel) to pin 2 of the IO3 junction block in the passenger side kick panel.
I've already added a pin and about 12" of wire on the kick panel side so either option should be relatively straight forward at this point.
That's where I'm at as of today. I will work on the driver seat later this week and update this thread. I have read that the driver seat may be a direct swap with no wiring modifications needed because my existing seats did have the power lumbar function so theoretically should already be receiving a 12V+ signal.
In the future, I may consider adding the appropriate wiring, relays, and switches for the heated seat functionality.
Once I'm done, I will also post the wire mapping that I put together in Excel.
I'm starting this thread to document my seat swap experience. There doesn't seem to be a lot of solid information out there (that I could find) other than a few threads of people who have had various luck with the swap. Most seem to get hung up on the wiring.
Original Seats:
-2005 Sport
-cloth (the black sport seat)
-manual adjustment (except power lumbar on the driver side)
-side airbags in the seats
Donor Seats:
-2006 Limited
-gray leather
-power adjustment
-side airbags in the seats
-memory seat function
-heated
I've been looking for a set of leather seats for a long time and one finally popped up at a local salvage yard. They appeared to be in really nice shape. At the time I picked them up, I didn't really pay attention to the year/trim/options of the seats. They were power, leather, and matched my interior, and that was all I really cared about. I figured I'd be able to sort out whatever wiring issues I ran into. I asked the salvage yard to cut some of the pigtail harnesses so I would have them (the wiring coming from under the seat that plugs into the seat).
After thorough cleaning the seats, I started to document the various connectors, wire colors, etc. using the factory wiring diagrams for both my 2005 and the donor 2006. My 2005 had three connectors coming up through the carpet on both the driver and passenger side.
2005 Driver Side:
1) Yellow 2-pin female connector
2) White 17-pin female connector
3) Black 4-pin female connector
2005 Passenger Side:
1) Yellow 2-pin female connector
2) White 17-pin female connector
3) Gray 6-pin female connector
To my surprise, the donor seats had the exact same connectors on the pigtails that the salvage yard had included, which indicated that the male side of the connectors under the seat bottoms would be directly compatible (even if the wiring needed to be modified).
I started with the passenger seat because I figured the wiring would be the least complicated. I unplugged my existing harnesses, unbolted the seat, and set the donor leather seat in place. I connected the 3 harnesses and discovered that:
1) Yellow connector: All airbag functions seemed to work normally. No airbag light on the dash, and the airbag indicator light near the climate control turned on/off appropriately when I was sitting in the seat. All of the wiring (pins/colors) were identical on my original seats and the donor seats.
2) Gray connector: The seatbelt buckle sensing function seemed to work normally. All of the wiring (pins/colors) were identical on my original seats and the donor seats.
3) White connector: This is where things got a little complicated. All of the pins/colors on both sides of the connector seemed to be identical, but the power sliding/reclining function on the seat did not work. This was confusing to me for a number of reasons. Given that my original seats had such limited functionality relative to the new ones, I didn't understand why all of the wiring was the same. I also didn't understand why the power functions were not working, but the seatbelt and SRS/airbag functions were working properly. This is where the trouble-shooting began.
I took out the donor seat and started to test some of the wiring on the body side of the wiring connectors. Using a multimeter, I pretty quickly discovered that the green/red wire in the white connector (pin 9) did NOT have 12V+ even though this was supposedly the wire coming from the 30A fuse for the passenger power seat (which, surprisingly, my car did have in the fuse block). Using the wiring diagrams, I determined that the green/red wire runs from the seat to a junction block in the passenger side kick panel, and from there runs to the main junction block under the steering wheel. I traced the wire from the seat to the kick panel junction box and noticed that green/red wire was NOT present between the kick panel and the main junction/fuse block. I applied 12V to the other side of the connector at the kick panel junction block and the power functions started working immediately.
I now have two options:
1) Pull another suitable 12V+ signal from somewhere else in the passenger side kick panel and use that, or;
2) Run a new wire between the kick panel and the fuse block. This would be the OEM route and the one I am likely to take. The wire will run from pin 32 of the 1J junction block (next to the fuse panel under the steering wheel) to pin 2 of the IO3 junction block in the passenger side kick panel.
I've already added a pin and about 12" of wire on the kick panel side so either option should be relatively straight forward at this point.
That's where I'm at as of today. I will work on the driver seat later this week and update this thread. I have read that the driver seat may be a direct swap with no wiring modifications needed because my existing seats did have the power lumbar function so theoretically should already be receiving a 12V+ signal.
In the future, I may consider adding the appropriate wiring, relays, and switches for the heated seat functionality.
Once I'm done, I will also post the wire mapping that I put together in Excel.
