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      07-10-2013, 01:23 AM   #2
froop's Avatar

Drives: 08 AW 6MT E82
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Sydney, Australia

iTrader: (3)

Originally Posted by ///Munson View Post
Hi. I have a VO 1M with electric memory seats and I am considering upgrading to the sports items.

What are the implications of fitting them? I understand I will lose the electric function, but retain heating and airbags. Is this correct? Does the car have to be modified in any way to accept the electric delete etc. or are they plug n play? I presume its a dealer job to code the airbags.

More importantly, what are they like to drive? Do you sit lower than in the OEM seats? Besides losing the electric adjustment and lumbar support, are there any major negatives of swapping to these bad boys? Do they massively improve the drive of the car? I don't dislike the OEM thrones, but I could be tempted to change to these ones if there aren't too many downsides.

As much information as possible would be greatly appreciated. Including pictures and videos if anyone has any.

Hi there,

Probably ace11 would be the best person to give you some feedback on these as he had these on his car before selling them.

I however had a chance to sit in some that were installed in a 1er and I wasn't too fond of them. They were much more firm which mean they were uncomfortable and not form fitting like the stock seats. They also felt too wide and not supportive enough around the thighs and shoulders. A wider person may feel different. I'm sure if using a 4/5/6 point harness it would hold you in much better than stock seat but I'm not sure whether it would be that much better when using an ordinary 3 point lap/sash seatbelt. In addition, the seating position isn't really exactly lower than the stock seat which you would probably want to expect from a 'sports' seat. One last thing, is that whilst they might be lighter than the stock seat, it's only marginally lighter so it's not worth it picking them up just for weight gains.

Regarding the installation, they should be pretty much bolt on. I can't see why they wouldn't just be plug and play with the factory seat harness. If that's the case, the airbag should not require any coding for it to work.

I did however speak to the owner of a shop here in Sydney who installed those seats and he said that they had a bitch of a time getting them to work with occupancy, seatbelt and airbag warnings. I don't know why this is being that it's a factory seat and should include the occupancy, seatbelt and airbag sensors but who knows. Someone should hopefully be able to shed more light. If for some reason you do run into this issue, some places do sell product that is able trick the car into thinking that there is someone sitting in the passenger seat which will remove some of the warnings. The other alternative is just to ignore the warnings all together and your car will still drive the same, you're just going to have 2 warning lights on your dash display. Also in the event of a crash, all available airbags will just go off rather than just the driver side if you're alone in the car.