Heated seats - please help!

[tom_sk]

Hi all,
Well, after many months, I’ve finally got round to changing Zed’s seats! I’m putting pre-facelift heated M seats into my facelift 2.2
I decided to swap bases, as all the wiring for seat motors, pre-tensioner and occupancy sensor stay with the base so avoiding connection issues. I found this an easy, straightforward job thanks to the many posts on here (thanks guys!) and I’m pleased with the result.
I just need to sort out the heating connections. I think I know what I’m doing but as my old seats were not heated I’ve nothing to compare with, so would appreciate any comments or suggestions as to whether I’ve got it right.
There are 3 pairs of sheathed wires coming out of the seat. One red pair and one red/yellow pair connect to the black plug and I assume these are for the heated seat switch. The third pair (orange/brown) feed directly into the seat loom and I assume these are the power feed. (I had to cut these to separate seat from base).
If I’m right about these wires then I can connect the orange/brown into the power feed at the yellow multi-plug ,seat-side.
To connect the other 2 pairs I can either source the correct connector (part no. 6113 8369713) for the yellow plug or, if it’s not available, make my own connection. This is where I need advice.
The corresponding connector in the yellow plug (chassis-side) has only 2 wires, brown and white. Is this the same as for the black connectors on the pre-facelift (i.e. 4 wires seat-side connecting to 2 wires chassis-side)? If so, how do I connect them – 2 red to brown and 2 red/yellow to white (or vice versa) OR 1 red/ 1 red/yellow to each of brown and white? Advice gratefully received!!!
Sorry if this is a bit long winded but I wanted it to be as clear as possible ( I hope it is!!)
PS – I have spent hours searching old posts but couldn’t find what I wanted.

Happy zedding!

Ian

[David]

I'm in the exact same predicament as you Ian, so I will be keeping an eye on this thread.

The white/red wire (driver's side) (white/yellow - passenger side) leading from the car supplies the power, whilst the brown is an earthed connection.
However I have connecting both red wires to the earth, and both yellow/red wires to the white/red, and vice versa, but getting no heating up of the seats, no warning lights, fires, explosions... nothing!

I have tested that the white/red and white/yellow wires are supplying the power via a makeshift ammeter (thanks Barry) and there is power going through (intermittent/pulsed when low heat button is pressed, and continuous with high heat button).

Somebody help us both please!!

TIA,
David

[David]

I've just scoured the forum, and the biggest clue I can find to help us on our joint venture is this picture below:



It is from quite an old thread where the OP spliced a facelift seat connector into the wiring for some pre-facelift seats. He stated that this was a photo of the facelift connector, and the heated seat connector, with other wires taped back.

This leads me to believe, after seeing the alternating (from top to bottom) wires as they go into the heated seat connector, that we should be wiring the seats up as follows:

1x red wire & 1x yellow/red wire > white/red wire (driver's side) or white/yellow wire (passenger side)
and
1x red wire & 1x yellow/red wire > brown wire (both sides)

I CLAIM NO RESPONSIBILITY SHOULD ANYTHING BAD HAPPEN IF YOU ATTEMPT THIS!!

...but accept all plaudits should it be the correct outcome

Can somebody please confirm my theory?

[tom_sk]

..... we should be wiring the seats up as follows:

1x red wire & 1x yellow/red wire > white/red wire (driver's side) or white/yellow wire (passenger side)
and
1x red wire & 1x yellow/red wire > brown wire (both sides)

David,
I came to this conclusion whilst having a ponder after tea! The 2 reds are from either base or back heating pad and the 2 red/yellows are from the other, so it makes sense to connect one of each to each of the 2 wires chassis side so switch operates on both pads and I don't think it should matter which way round.
The picture shows one way to do this as long as you can get hold of female black connector; alternatively wiring into yellow plug as I said in my first post. I enquired at dealer on Sat. about the connector but they couldn't find it!
I'll have a trawl on the internet later to see if either connector can be obtained. BTW are you connecting into facelift car - I assume you are?

I'm quite prepared to try this out (AND SHARE YOUR PLAUDITS!!) as long as I can make sure the 3rd wires I mentioned (brown and orange) are in fact the power supply - can you confirm this?

Not sure at the moment if I will need a relay as I can't raise bonnet in garage due to overhanging shelf - will need to wait until I get car out to re-fit seat.

Cheers, Ian

[tom_sk]

Well, had a quick trawl and here's where I've got so far.

Facelift: black connector to fit in yellow multi-plug (seat-side) 6113 8 369 713 (found this part no.on a previous post which I can't seem to find now!)

NOT found on realoem but found on
http://www.online-parts.co.uk/bmw/advan ... GpUDRa6iDk - not sure if this is it as there’s no pic!


Pre-facelift: black female connector to wire into yellow multi-plug (chassis side) -don’t have a part no. yet

Just out of interest put in the part no. for the black male connector (seat-side) 6113 1 378 132
Was told it no longer existed but to order 6113 8 352 311 which although from different model/part of car, looks the same. (part no. 8 here)
http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do ... fg=75&hl=8

Will carry on looking but a bit scuppered without a part no. Perhaps I'll put a wanted post on here or see if anyone knows the part number.

[David]

You are correct, my seats are pre-facelift seats, and my car is a facelift Z3 (1.9 M43).

I'm not entirely sure what purpose the 3rd cable serves on the seats. I haven't had to worry about these though, as it routes down to the seat motors and adjustment switches, and is all connected up via the OEM connections.

With regards to purchasing a new OEM yellow connector, up until now I have not bothered with this, and I doubt I will to be honest. At the moment I have a combination of spade connectors, and the OEM connectors that were the same for both pre- and post- facelift. I don't like how the yellow connector is essentially lots of little connectors merged together by a plastic housing.

I was thinking of purchasing two of these from eBay, and making the whole loom into one connection:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-Set-Vehicle ... 3397437e9f


I'm not going to get a chance to test OUR theory for a couple of days now, so let me know if you have any success!

Regards,
David

[David]

Just found the following on realOEM.com

Labelled No.5 in the picture, might be what you need?
No use to me now, as I've already chopped the connectors off.



http://realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do?mod ... g=61&fg=10

[Robert T]

Take a closer look at the yellow connector. If memory serves, the car side is actually just a casing around several smaller connectors. You might just be able to remove the casing and use at least some of the connectors directly. In particular, it would be good to use the seat motor power connector if you can, as these draw a fair bit of current, and I'm not sure that the contacts in the multi-way connector above will be rated high enough for them.

The connectors that BMW use for most of these things are the same type, with crimp on pins that go in a housing. The problem is identifying the connector series they come from, or even identifying the individual parts on RealOEM. The pre-made loom above is likely to be a lot more expensive than the component parts. Alternatively, RS (http://uk.rs-online.com/web/) do a range of such connectors more cheaply than you'll find them on ebay, as do AES (http://autoelectricsupplies.co.uk/). The ones above look very similar to the TC Econoseal connectors I bought last week.

Cheers R.

[('_')Z3]

Just found the following on realOEM.com

Labelled No.5 in the picture, might be what you need?
No use to me now, as I've already chopped the connectors off.



http://realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do?mod ... g=61&fg=10

From memory when I did mine that part is the wrong way round I.e the newer connector is the male and it should be the female etc. I ended up buying a set of prefacelift connectors from the car loom that someone was breaking and buying the face lifted connectors from bmw that I could find parts numbers for (but some genuinely down seem to have any). Then it was just a question of making a best fit from the connectors I had.
In all honesty though It was nearly impossible to find some part numbers even when you had the connector it clipped in to.

[David]

From memory when I did mine...

Hello mate,

Can you please confirm for both of us how the red/yellow, and red wires should be wired up correctly?
Are we right in suggesting to pair them off:

1x red and 1x yellow/red > white/red (white/yellow on pass side)
1x red and 1x yellow/red > brown

?

TIA
David

[('_')Z3]

My car isn't here for me to look but I do have the old connectors that I bought from someone breaking a Z (this is the car loom side) in front of me. The black connector (heaters) has four wires
2 brown
1 red and white
1 green and white

Other side
2 brown
1 yellow and white
1 blue and white

But like I said I can't remember what my facelifted car loom had
Have you fitted the relay?

[David]

...Have you fitted the relay?

Which relay might this be?
Another member recently told me that "after looking at the ETM the circuit is just powered off fuse 4 and does not use a relay."

Thanks,
David

[('_')Z3]

http://www.zroadster.net/forum/viewtopi ... ay#p270615

[bertiejaffa]

I don't think the post facelift car needs the relay - instead it needs a relay for the rear demist

[gookah]

My facelift car didn't have heated seats,
I bought M seats and took all the wires with the connectors cutting them off below the donor cars carpet. I then soldered them in but can't remember the colours.
However all I needed was two switches and they worked straight away. No relay was needed, must have already been in there or not needed

[Brian H]

As bertijaffa has said, the facelift cars do not need an unloader relay for the seats but preface lift do.

[gookah]

As Gookah has said, the facelift cars do not need an unloader relay for the seats

corrected that for you.

Bertiejaffa 'thought' it. ......

Mine is actual experience.

just saying

[bertiejaffa]

As Gookah has said, the facelift cars do not need an unloader relay for the seats

corrected that for you.

Bertiejaffa 'thought' it. ......

Mine is actual experience.

just saying

The guru hath spoken

[gookah]

As Gookah has said, the facelift cars do not need an unloader relay for the seats

corrected that for you.

Bertiejaffa 'thought' it. ......

Mine is actual experience.

just saying

The guru hath spoken

[David]

Are we right in suggesting to pair them off:

1x red and 1x yellow/red > white/red (white/yellow on pass side)
1x red and 1x yellow/red > brown

?

We have a winner!!!

To confirm: I trialed this pattern of wiring earlier today, and I now have a passenger seat that heats up!!

...No relay required, as discovered (post-facelift Z3)

Now I'm just waiting for some generic connectors to arrive before making the connection permanent on both seats.

[Southernboy]

........ some like it hot.... .....well done David.

Perhaps you would like to do a separate post with photographs which can be stored in the Z3 Knowledge base for future enquiries..

[David]

I will do once I make them a more permanent connection for them.

Or perhaps Ian might be a better candidate if he is going down the OEM connections route?

I'm happy either way.

[Sailorbaz]

Was reading your post with interest since I have a seat heating issue in my recent project car.

Sorry for the thread hijack but, my passenger seat heating is working a treat (Ideal for when I've had a couple of pints after a run out) but the drivers seat doesn't (not so good for me on the way out to aforementioned pints) The button flashes, both on high and low setting but goes out after a few moments, any ideas?

Again, sorry for the hijack.

[Brian H]

Was reading your post with interest since I have a seat heating issue in my recent project car.

Sorry for the thread hijack but, my passenger seat heating is working a treat (Ideal for when I've had a couple of pints after a run out) but the drivers seat doesn't (not so good for me on the way out to aforementioned pints) The button flashes, both on high and low setting but goes out after a few moments, any ideas?

Again, sorry for the hijack.

Swap the switches over and retest, hopefully this will let you know if you have a faulty switch.

[Brian4]

Hi Sailorbaz
If swopping the seat switches over fails it could probably be the fault that Gookah did an excellent write up on.
http://www.zroadster.net/forum/viewtopi ... 18&t=34170

This was the fault with ours and one of the switches had gone bad as well.

it is a fairly easy repair and a good project for a rainy Sunday. The switches can be pushed out from below when the gearlever gaiter is lifted out.

[Sailorbaz]

Thanks for your suggestion, should have added tried swapping switches and also some spares I had from another car, same result.

There's must be some sort of overload protection somewhere is there? Relay?

[tom_sk]

We have a winner!!!

To confirm: I trialed this pattern of wiring earlier today, and I now have a passenger seat that heats up!!
........

Hey, just got back from a few days away and saw this..WELL DONE! You've been beavering away while I've been doing b***** all.

Will try this ASAP as long as it's not raining as I need to put car on drive to get access.
I'll probably make some quick temporary connections and put seats back in as SWMBO is getting edgy about having 4 seats plus tools in the spare bedroom - she wants to sort it out for family coming for Xmas. As long as the seat motors are working OK I can wait 'til the nicer weather to take seats out and make a more permanent job - probably give me time to source the connectors I want.

Of course, I'll still have my 2 original seats and door cards in the bedroom! Will have to decide whether to sell them quickly as they are or try to find another storage space as I had planned to treat the light bolster scuffing before selling. Decisions, decisions....

BTW how much do you think they would be worth - Topaz Blue Oregon leather, just light scuffs to drivers side only, intact seat belt guides from 40k car?? Plus matching door cards?

Cheers, Ian

[tom_sk]

Hi all
Well, now have my seats in and all working fine
Seat heating connections are temporary and I'll sort out the correct connectors ready to fit them next year when the weather improves.

NOW, I have another problem I hope you guys can help me with.

If you remember I swapped seat bases - my original facelift bases onto M heated seats. So, I have put the pre-facelift M bases onto my original seats with a view to selling them on. I thought I'd better test them out so lugged my battery into the spare room/workshop. I connected it up to the 2 pins in the white connector and nothing !

The test bulb in the circuit lights when seat switch is put into all 3 positions, but no response from motors!

My question is, have I been sold a pair of seats whose motors don't work OR do they need to be in the car with other connections made before they'll work OR have I disturbed something during the swap? I'm inclined to discount the last one as it would be a bit of a coincidence if I disturbed both but neither of the two other bases.

Anyway, as usual, any comments/helpful suggestions gratefully received.

Cheers, Ian