Electric seats - E46

scalesg · Post by **scalesg** » Sun Mar 12, 2017 2:00 pm

Hi everyone, hope you are all good

I never had an issue with having electric seats, I was always quite happy moving the levers about in all the cars I have had for many many years.

Until I got my 330 with electric seats that is.... I got used to it straight away and loved it. And then I got my B3S, manual seats. that's what it came with (why???) And BMW levers are the worst imo

My thinking is, I can just swap the bottom of the seats over for electric ones, plug them into the writing loom, put a fuse in the box and all will be well with the world again for me

Questions;

1 Is it really this easy?
2 Is the wiring loom there already?
3 Should I do this?

Any help appreciated or a pointer to someone who has already done this would be great

Thanks in advance all and see you in April if you are going up to Sytners!!

Gary

simon13 · Post by **simon13** » Sun Mar 12, 2017 3:42 pm

i'm told retro fitting is very easy/simple but i've not done it myself

BarryM · Post by **BarryM** » Sun Mar 12, 2017 5:05 pm

There are very detailed write ups for this on the 5forum so I'd have thought there are bound to be similar on 3 series forums.

scalesg · Post by **scalesg** » Sun Mar 12, 2017 7:59 pm

Many thanks both, I will have a look! Hope to see you all in April!

ali · Post by **ali** » Tue Mar 14, 2017 11:29 pm

If your car has autofold mirrors then you will have the loom for electric seats built in already After that it is plug and play

scalesg · Post by **scalesg** » Wed Mar 15, 2017 2:51 pm

I do have those.

Brilliant, thanks for This!

AG · Post by AG » Wed Mar 15, 2017 9:36 pm

ali-bumble wrote:If your car has autofold mirrors then you will have the loom for electric seats built in already After that it is plug and play

Is that true? Reading a few posts on other forums this doesn't always seem to be the case, but would love to know how the OP gets on.

I'd buy a complete powered seat and be done with it, no swapping over if I could help it.

sat82 · Post by **sat82** » Fri Mar 17, 2017 1:26 pm

Hi,

I think I recall someone telling me as long as you have a 'limbus' installed, then you can add electric seats.

Not sure of the technical detail behind this - sorry!

ali · Post by **ali** » Tue Mar 21, 2017 1:15 am

I was going to retrofit heated seats into a previous E46 but stopped when I read up on the web about the different types of loom fitted. If your car has autofold/memory mirrors and the extra button to fold them then the mirrors will have the larger 12 pin connector This larger loom is reflected in having the loom present for heated seats. Seems BMW did a couple of different looms depending on the spec of the car

simon13 · Post by **simon13** » Tue Mar 21, 2017 1:58 am

heated seats was standard spec on all UK spec B3's ali. Does your car not have them then?

Post by **Charles** » Tue Mar 21, 2017 1:38 pm

I've got heated seats (as standard) but not folding mirrors nor electric adjustment on the seats - where does that leave me, I wonder?

scalesg · Post by **scalesg** » Tue Mar 21, 2017 4:29 pm

I have folding mirrors and heated seats, but they are manual. I believe in the original spec list I have electric seats are not mentioned so assuming they are original, but now if they are standard they would not be on the spec list?

MickB3 · Post by **MickB3** » Tue Mar 21, 2017 5:45 pm

Charles wrote:I've got heated seats (as standard) but not folding mirrors nor electric adjustment on the seats - where does that leave me, I wonder?

In the same boat as me

simon13 · Post by **simon13** » Tue Mar 21, 2017 7:17 pm

we've all got heated seats!!

thats all mines got mieser spec