Factory Heated seat retrofit DIY:


*note* this is my first draft, It may be a bit of high over-view for a first timer, as I've done around 100 seat covers. I'll edit for/add clarifications as questions are asked.

Prerequisites:

1. Understand how to change your VO in NCS Expert. You will want to code your FRM, CAS, SPEG and IHKA (VO Value $494)
2. Know how to remove your seats without setting airbag codes (disconnect your negative battery cable)
3. Have a decent set of tools and knowledge to know how to use them.
4. Installed Adobe SVG viewer and Internet Explorer 7.0+
5. Ability to read between the lines if I'm not clear.
6. Read my entire thread.
7. Read this entire thread: https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...8-mcs-r56.html

Useful websites:

http://realoem.com
http://www.bmw-planet.com/diagrams/r.../r56/index.htm
http://wds.spaghetticoder.org/us/
http://bmwcoding.com
www.car-part.com (for used parts needs)


Full photo gallery of this procedure: (100 pics total)
http://bedellracing.smugmug.com/Cars...986309_22qGm6m


Thank you to Joey and Alex for all their advice, brain storming help.

I ran into one major hiccup:
The harness I purchased was incorrectly pinned. Which caused the seats to not work. When in doubt, check your continuity all the way from the fuse block to the seat module.

Parts needed/what I used:

1. Roll of 10 gauge wire
2. Roll of 16-18 gauge wire
Blue, green, Brown and Red/green (if you care) Otherwise, I used: black, red, blue and green. I found the blue at Home depot, the rest at an electronics store.
3. 2x: 03 WIRING HEATED SEAT harness Part# 52102753025 $22.36
From here:http://realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do?...82&hg=61&fg=10
Pic: http://bedellracing.smugmug.com/Cars.../XL/015-XL.jpg

4. 4 heater module pads from Mini. (note: I have sport seats, if you do not have sport seats,yours are different refer to the photos in the other thread for more detail.)
5. 2x seat modules: Part# 61356926435
6. 8x large 1.5-2.5mm crimp connectors. (4 at the seats, 2 at the fuse box and 2 to screw up) Part# 61138364848
7. 2 Generic blue 6mm eye crimp connectors (ground to the junction ground next to each seat on the rocker panel) You can buy the terminals for the ground to tie it into the junction if you like.
8. 7 smaller Pins/Terminals to connect the fuse block. (I'll update with part numbers that I purchased)

9. 100 hog rings (48 per seat, 4 to 'misfire')
10. Heated seat panel. Used AC panel. Any combination of switchs is fine, you'll just transfer your fog-lights to the new panel. make sure you match manual/automatic AC controller and get one with Heated seats.



Tools:

1. T30 & T25 Socket T30 and screwdriver T25(I think)
2. Heavy duty side/wire cutters. I use a klein crimping tool.
3. Hog ring pliers
4. 90 degree and strait pick.
5. volt/ohm meter
6. Electrical tape. (cloth friction tape if you want to match OEM)
7. shrink wrap, solder iron/heat gun.
8. Wire strippers
9. Sheet/heavy blanket.
10. Small flashlight


Find room to have doors fully open, remove the headrests and raise the seats to the highest position.
Pull your battery cable.

Set up your cloth/blanket/sheet to work on. A nice work bench would be useful, but not necessary. I just did this on a the garage floor with a sheet.

Once the seats are out. Take photos of every angle you can (including the bottom of the seats, you might need these for visual help)


Remove the clips with your pick, note clips are already removed:



Remove your height adjustment lever. You'll need to use the pick to remove the cap and access the two torx screws:





Lift on the end:



You'll need some help, work this plastic clip over the assembly.



It looks like this inside:



Remove your rear cover, you'll take 3 screws out of the latch:



After that the panel more or less lifts up and off. One of mine just about fell off, the other was quite difficult. Just be patient and try to see the clips.




Remove your reclining lever:

Take the trim cover off with the pick:


Slip a screwdriver under the trim and gently lift up, it'll pop right off.



Rear headrest inserts are tricky. I was able to press down on the leather enough to expose the clips. I've successfully 'twisted them' to get them out on other cars. Unfortunately, this process broke one with the MINI.
If you depress the clips, they will just slide right up without damaging them.






Once you have all the trim off, you're ready to start removing the leather. I always start with removing the bottom first. You use your pick to help slip the plastic connectors off the metal rail.

I just use a pulling motion, careful to not puncture stuff with your pick:




Once all those are done, the hog-rings are tricky. I use a pair or dikes, grip hold of them and 'twist & pull' opposite of the way they overlap. They just open up and come off. If you're paranoid of ripping stuff, cut them and fish them out. I didn't get a photo of this unfortunately.


Work from the back of the seat (between the upper and lower seat) You'll remove the leather flap from the lower cushion first.







After that, you'll pull the leather from the bottom of the lower cushion up and over the seat cushion. Be patient. You can tear things.



Lift the lower piece up and forward:


Make sure your sensor wire is unplugged and your assembly will look like this:


Remember all those hog rings? AKA "heavy staples" This is where you remove them. There are about 20 if I remember correctly. Just take your time, they will come off.




Soon enough, your seat will look like this: (this is the drivers seat)



Passenger seat: (note the switch/assembly for occupancy Be careful, it's my understanding that these things are very fragile)




Locate the hole to feed your wire through:


Start laying your heater element on the cushion:

Note, they are a bit long. They are designed to tuck into the groove. Start at one end, work slowly.


The blue plastic is an adhesive protection. Remove it so that the element will stick to the seat bottom. (this goes down)


Once stuck on and you're happy with it, start putting the hog rings in. These take about 10 seconds each, maybe less. Don't think about zip ties; they get old, brittle and are a PITA to put in. Hog ring pliers are available for less than $20.00

Line it up and squeeze: Work from the inside out, going slowly to make sure the leather isn't in a bind or out of alignment. If you're recycling your covers, the holes are already there and easy to put them back where they came from.





Taking the back off was tricky, a piece of leather on the air bag side wraps around the seat hinge assembly. I gently worked the leather out with a pick and needle nose pliers:


Here is the back: There are a whole bunch of photos of the back assembly removal, if you've made it this far, you have a hang of it.

I won't pollute this thread with all the extras: They are here if you are curious: http://bedellracing.smugmug.com/Cars...986309_22qGm6m

Same process, I didn't remove the air-bag. It wasn't necessary and I could work around it:





Wire feed for the backs were similar. I followed the airbag wire for a path. Use plenty of zip ties and the required clips. You don't want to pinch a wire down the road.




Wiring was pretty easy, there are 3 connectors within this yellow case:


New connector on the right, old on the left: You will want to transfer the wires in the old one to the new connector.




When done, module will mount in the existing holder and wiring will look like this:
Before:


After:


Another view:


ON your body side, you'll want to untape the harness a bit, fish the 4 wires through and route them to the fuse block. You will want to refer to the wiring diagrams at this point. (WDS in linky above)
You'll then be building your harness from the seat to the SPEG(fuse block). This is where wiring prerequisites are essential.

I'll give you this, it was kinda hard to find initially"




AC panel stuff:




Wiring diagrams here:
Passenger:
http://wds.spaghetticoder.org/us/svg...4504.svg?m=r56

Drivers:
http://wds.spaghetticoder.org/us/svg...4502.svg?m=r56

Overview of operation:
http://wds.spaghetticoder.org/us/zin...520005-K06.htm

 

Just to add to this.

Both uppers and lowers were done. Cost would have been far cheaper to go with an aftermarket kit. I think if I were recommending someone do it 'cost effectively', I'd tie into the factory fuse block for the 30 amp fuses and tie the rest into the aftermarket switches. No need to run a new circuit to the battery.

This wasn't a 'kit'. I purchased each part individually from MINI. (Mini of Dallas has gone above and beyond their duties to be more than helpful with locating and helping me find obscure parts. More than once, we have spent 30 minutes trying to find a part that costs .35....

 

Wow Brad, well done. This is extremely helpful. I'd like to go the aftermarket route, but I'd like to use the factory switches. Can that be done???

I was thinking that if I could use the aftermarket kit and OaklandMini's instructions, I could somehow make the factory seat heater switches work (a switch is a switch, right?)

I'm pretty sure it's not that simple, but can it be done, even with modifications to the factory switches?

 

I'm sure it *could* be done. If you wanted to use the OEM switches, I would try after-market seat elements with OEM modules/wiring. As long as the element was within similar OHM readings, I bet it would work. OEM elements were around $470 of the total cost. A whole after-market kit can be had for around $100-150. Short of the adhesive tape and custom shape, they are the same thing.

Otherwise, the OEM switches are circuit board mounted and you'd have to get into isolating the circuit and soldering wires to it as the signal is sent over the canbus to tell the SPEG to turn on the seats.

The problem is that the SPEG (fuse block) checks the circuit and sends a PWM signal to the modules. I believe the module reports back with a simple voltage signal.

 

OK, I'm not an electrical engineer, so if you can help put things in laymen's terms, that would be great. Basically, I ordered the exact same seat elements that OaklandMini ordered for his mod. I was going to do this the exact same way until I saw your write up and then thought the switch mod may work. What are the OEM Modules/Wiring that you are talking about? Can you draw a simple wiring diagram for me? If I can get this to work, I'll write up the mod and post it on here.

 

I'm not an EE myself. CS if anyone is curious. But I do have 20 years working knowledge with automotive electricity and more than my share of burnt up components. See the last few links of my first post for diagrams and how the assembly works. Modules are photographed 5-6 pics from the bottom. Essentially, the modules are relay boxes with some logic/binary-diagnostic ability. (binary= works or doesn't)


Stock switches are on a circuit board that's part of the control panel. You'd likely have to cut the traces with a knife, solder to them, run the wires out of the board and pray they don't overload the board.

I do mean to be intentionally ambiguous. 1. I'd have to actually 'figure it out' and 2. Mostly for everyone's protection. *if* what I said doesn't make crystal clear sense, they are probably better off doing it the way that oklandmini did. Cutting the traces and soldering onto another board is a pretty advanced/delicate operation with more pitfalls at ruining a heater/ac control assembly than I care to mention. (it could cost you big money if wasn't done correctly)

Order some hog rings and pliers. It'll be the best $30.00 you've ever spent compared to the zip tie route.

 

Thanks Brad. The EE comment wasn't meant to be an insult. I hope it wasn't perceived that way. I'm a BME myself, with a greater than average background in EE, but I must say you've sufficiently scared me off. I guess I'll just go the Aftermarket route and be happy with that. I'll probably go ahead and get the hog rings and pliers, especially if you think it makes that much of a difference. Nevertheless, I'd kill to have my heated seats controlled by the OEM switch.

Great write up though. It would be helpful if you spent a little more time discussing the recoding necessary to complete the mod (another piece of this job that scared me away). And you could add a bit more detail to the section about fishing the wires back through.

Thanks for your help/advice...

 

No insult taken or intended. I work with software engineers and keep computers running. I often find myself being a bit socially awkward. You are correct, there are some holes in here; but all the links that I found the most useful are present to 'fill' them if one was so inclined.

I'm still learning about the MINI myself. I bought it Mid September. Being willing to spend a few hours reading through the prerequisites will likely end you up with more questions; I found that I had to pull the seat and 'explore' before any of it made sense. I so wish I had found 1/2 of the photos that I took. The thing that scared me the most was the harness/wiring and how it routed from the factory.

Spend a little time reading through the NCS expert/dummy how-to threads under electrical for the Coding. Then spend some time on the BMW coding threads. (links above) While it is complex, there are several people who can help you if you get stuck and have a specific problem.

I mention NCSExpert as a prerequisite as it really is a complete topic in itself and beyond the scope of this thread. I learned that coding was available for the MINI in either late November, early December. My first piece of software download was 6 Dec 2011. I ordered an incorrect cable at first, got the correct cable about Christmas. I'm still drowning with understanding the coding work. Once you get NCS Expert talking, it's an easy task to code just the seats.

I suppose there are two different ways to get stock buttons to work. One is the scary way what I mentioned supra, the other would be to wire the after-market elements to the factory seat heater Modules. More or less, you would be substituting the factory elements with the after-market elements. I believe there is a temp sensor in the upper element, I'm not certain the after-market ones have this sensor, or if it would work. At the end of the day, it is a resistor wire that puts off heat when energized. As long as it's in the 2.3-3.0 ohm range, (or even outside ???) and the temp sensor was present, I suspect the module wouldn't know the difference. (wiring diagrams are listed at the end of the first thread). You are on your own for the element connectors on the OEM modules. I don't think they are available without the elements.

As for fishing the wires through a harness. That's a trick I learned from my car stereo days. (fishing a wire through a door). Get some water based lube. (wire lube at the home improvement store, or something at the intimateness section at the drug store). Find a metal coat hanger,(I use .049 steel welding rod) sand off the paint in a couple of spots.

Cut it to about 1'. Take a torch or a big soldering iron and solder one end of your copper wire to the hanger. Flux usually helps with the joint.

This gives you something stiff to push through the harness and then pull once you get it there. Care should be taken to deburr the end of the hanger so that you don't damage the shielding on other wires in the harness. The lube will help greatly with this process.

It's a slow process, but depending on how tight the loom is wrapped, you can fish wires through pretty quickly and do minimal disassembly to the stock loom.

Don't solder all of them at once, you'll want to spread the solder joints out in a chain about 2" apart to keep the assembly tight. Again, keep it deburred.

I didn't take any photos of this process or of the wiring. I probably should have, I do this just about every time I do any wiring in a car. (except my navigation system retrofit, which still needs to be cleaned up)

 

Has anyone done this retrofit that can provide pics or wiring diagrams? All of the pics are missing from the post and the links for wiring diagrams are dead. I tried PMing Brad Bedell but am not getting an answer. If anyone can help it would be much appreciated. Thanks.

P.S. I'm about to do this on a 2013 MCS

 

I did the this on my '09 JCW. Here's a link to my write-up and another write-up by OaklandMini that is contained within the same thread. I think everything you need to know is contained in that thread and all of the pics are still up and visible. Contact me/us if you need any help...

 

Thanks for the reply but I found that write up before and was planning to use it as a guide to disassemble. I'm doing OEM heated seats, I was looking for the wiring to the switches and fuse box. I can't get www.bmw-planet.com to work on any of my computers.

 

All my searching has turned up two promising things on the heated seat retrofit for the R56. Seems there is a retrofit kit sold by Mini but only available, as far as I can tell, in Europe. The part number is 61110422485 Check it out here http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts...13&hg=52&fg=95

It would be great if we could get the individual part numbers for the wiring harnesses. I have most of the parts needed already so ordering the kit doesn't work for me. Also the kit is for non sport seats, I'm assuming that only matters for the heating elements themselves as everything else should be the same as far as wiring goes. I also found instructions but unfortunately it is in German. Here's the link. http://mini.camp3r.com/Einbauanleitu...ng%20vorne.pdf

Somebody wanna take a crack at translating it?

 

I know this is an old thread- but I can't get most of the links and pictures to work... :( OP, are you still around? I have the control panel that has plugs cut with a few inches of harness and some complete factory heated seats w/modules & everything. Thanks and Happy Motoring!
~Matt
'10 Clubman S w/JCW goodies

 

Reviving an old thread - if I can get the 61110422485 kit, what else would I need besides the new set of switches for the center console? Anyone know?