Hi there,
This topic has surely been touched upon numerous times before in varying capacity but the info I'm after tends to be scattered all over the place and I figured it would be good to have a comprehensive list of sorts.
I've got an Msport Touring with alcantara interior from factory that I want to upgrade to full leather. I've already found all four door cards and the rear seats and am on the hunt for some front electric sports seats to match. Normally, finding a straight swap from another E46 would be fairly easy in most places but being in the South Island of New Zealand, the market is relatively small and there's not that many cars being parted out locally to choose from. Have been on the lookout for over a year now and nothing suitable has come up yet, so I'm looking to expand the pool of potential options.
So my question is: seats from which other models would be a fairly straight-forward plug & play swap into an E46?
For one, I know of a guy locally that installed E53 X5 seats in his car - all the bolt holes lined up, electronic plugs were a straight match with all functions working and the only modification required was swapping over the seat belt buckle-tensioner assembly.
Another recent example was @BavarianZHP installing E85 Z4 seats into his, being a similar straight swap story apart from the belt buckle.
Have also heard of E63 6-series seats having the same bolt layout but don't know enough to confirm.
There have been quite a few E60 & E90's parted out recently but I've been hesitant to jump on those in fear of the seats turning out to be incompatible. There's also a mint looking 2017 M2 wreck with gorgeous seats sitting at a salvage auction but I don't rate the chances of those being a straight swap too highly, plus the price will probably be beyond what I'd consider reasonable anyway.
I don't mind doing some moderate modifications to make some higher spec seats work, so long as it doesn't involve any cutting and welding, or more complicated electronic rejigging.
Anyway, please jump in and add more models to the list if you know of any, or point to threads elsewhere that might have relevant info. Would be much appreciated.
Cheers
This topic has surely been touched upon numerous times before in varying capacity but the info I'm after tends to be scattered all over the place and I figured it would be good to have a comprehensive list of sorts.
I've got an Msport Touring with alcantara interior from factory that I want to upgrade to full leather. I've already found all four door cards and the rear seats and am on the hunt for some front electric sports seats to match. Normally, finding a straight swap from another E46 would be fairly easy in most places but being in the South Island of New Zealand, the market is relatively small and there's not that many cars being parted out locally to choose from. Have been on the lookout for over a year now and nothing suitable has come up yet, so I'm looking to expand the pool of potential options.
So my question is: seats from which other models would be a fairly straight-forward plug & play swap into an E46?
For one, I know of a guy locally that installed E53 X5 seats in his car - all the bolt holes lined up, electronic plugs were a straight match with all functions working and the only modification required was swapping over the seat belt buckle-tensioner assembly.
Another recent example was @BavarianZHP installing E85 Z4 seats into his, being a similar straight swap story apart from the belt buckle.
Have also heard of E63 6-series seats having the same bolt layout but don't know enough to confirm.
There have been quite a few E60 & E90's parted out recently but I've been hesitant to jump on those in fear of the seats turning out to be incompatible. There's also a mint looking 2017 M2 wreck with gorgeous seats sitting at a salvage auction but I don't rate the chances of those being a straight swap too highly, plus the price will probably be beyond what I'd consider reasonable anyway.
I don't mind doing some moderate modifications to make some higher spec seats work, so long as it doesn't involve any cutting and welding, or more complicated electronic rejigging.
Anyway, please jump in and add more models to the list if you know of any, or point to threads elsewhere that might have relevant info. Would be much appreciated.
Cheers
