Originally Posted by ih8cornnuts

Nice job! Yes they are more comfortable and slightly...(only slightly) more supportive. They update the car nicely and have a heavy does for retro that the originals are missing.

Originally Posted by Move Over

I'm getting ready to do the swap this week, i am waiting on the harness from an R56 to try to replug the in car harness rather than the seat plug. Hope it works, in case I want to swap to a different set of R56 seats later on.

Originally Posted by Noonzio

Did you get this done?

Originally Posted by ih8cornnuts

UNDER CONSTRUCTION


Tools needed

Torx Bits T40 and T60
3/8" Ratchet
Pliers
Wirestrippers (optional)
Diagonal Snips
Small Screwdrivers
Knife
Zip Ties
Beer (not shown)

***Remove you negative battery cable and let the car sit for 20-30 minutes. No use having an airbag deploy and ruin your new seats or having a permanently lit airbag light on your dash***



Grab that ratchet and T40 Torx bit and start removing the seat bolts, 4 per seat.



Now tilt the seat back and remove the electrical plugs for the Airbag (yellow) and seat belts (the other two). If you have heated seats there should be another black plug with some heavy gauge wiring. Pull those old seats out and be amazed at the years of crumbs and trash wedged in some of those areas. Take the time to really vacuum out this area. I've always thought I kept a clean car but apparently I dont have a small enough vacuum attachment to really get down in there...note to self!



Mmm tasty...Now you're going to remove the seat belt assembly from your R53 seats. This will installed on the newer R56 seats as the new buckles are different than the earlier models. To remove, use the T60 torx bit. Remember to pull towards you so you dont rack your knuckles on something hard and or sharp. This bolt is held down with blue loctite. Don't worry about all the nastiness in this area, we're going to clean up in a minute.



Now that you have that seatbelt bolt out, it's time to run the wires out. This is easier if you remove the plastic trim on the front and middle portion of the seat. This will open that area enough to easily feed those wires through.



Here is everything you should have removed so far. Seatbelt assembly, bolt and 4 qty seat bolts. Be sure to save that seatbelt bolt, it's a little bit longer than the R56 version and will thread right into the new seats.



Here, we are removing the seatbelts from the R56 seats. Same as above, hold the seat down and prepare to crank on that loctited bolt.



Moving on to the R56 seats. The 1st gen cars used multiple individual plugs, 2nd gen use this "all-in-one" plug. Fortunately the individual plugs are captive within this "master" plug. To separate, use a small flathead screwdriver and press the 2 retainers to slide out the plugs.



They'll come out just like this. You can toss that big ole' yellow plug now.



Now we're going to remove the airbag plug and replace with the plug from our 1st gen airbag. This allows the seat to plug right into the existing wire harness already in your car. There are 2 tiny little pin you press to remove the wires and their "pins".



Cut your old yellow airbag plug from your old seats. In hindsight I should have mended the newer plug to the in-car wiring harness. This way you can sell your old airbags and recoup some of your costs. I wanted to retain as much "stock integrity" as possible so I went this route.



You want to press out the inner plug from your freshly cut airbag connector. Be careful NOT to put your hand or fingers near that open end. The copper contacts are hard and sharp and you will put that SOB right through your finger...ask me how I know



Now that you have that inner plug out, remove that little pink retainer. Set aside so you dont lose it.



We're going to grab that little screwdriver again and press the old pins out. This will open up the pug to accept the new wires. Thankfully Mini kept them the same for stoopid easy swappin' ***Notice those lil bastard copper contacts. Do you really want THAT going into your finger? Me thinks not.




You'll want to trim some of that yellow sheathing from the airbag wire to give you enough room to install the pins. I used a knife and those wire strippers. Secondly, you want to align those pins so those detents grab and wont set your airbag light off in the future.



This is with the pins aligned and about to be installed back into the airbag connector. I left the gray portion out of the plug to ensure the connection would be made. You also want to re-install that little pink connector on the backside of that gray plug. I didn't take a pic because it was so small and easy.



This is the part that will likely cause some some controversy here. On the R53 seat there is a bolt (previously removed) and a pin for alignment of the seat belt assembly. On the R56 seat there is a bent steel "pin" that aligns the seatbelt assembly. I simply bent this piece flat with a pair of pliers and made sure to really crank down on that bolt.



Here we have the bolt installed, feel free to add a drop or two of some loctite to button everything up. I didn't but I might be removing the seats shortly to install heaters and take care of that then. Take car routing the wires through the seat frame. This unit slides on the rails so making the wires taught will limit the seat travel and possibly mess up your plugs/wiring.




Here are a few shots of the wiring, note zip tie location. Now its time to get those fancy new seats in!!!



This is the new seat tilted back with the plugs all attached. Note the airbag plug is in front of the bar, move it behind with the rest of the plugs.



Almost done!!! Time to crank those bolts down. Please clean them before installing, mine had a decent amount of grease on them. Go ahead and reconnect that battery cable and...



Revel in your new seat goodness. If you were used to the hard leatherette from the old seats like me, be prepared to sneak out at night and sit in your new seats naked...just kidding!

Please let me know if there are any questions.

Originally Posted by BeardedR60

Sooooo.... sorry in advance for bring this back from the dead... I see a lot of talk of Newer mini seats into older minis.
Has anyone put older mini seats into any newer minis?

Im considering popping the seats from my 2003 Mini into my 2013 Countryman.

I know..... "Why?!?!? Why would you do that?!?!?" lol

Basically, they are real leather, extremely comfortable..... and I'd really like the plastic backs to be in the countryman, since my girlfriends son can't seem to stop kicking the seats. lol
The mesh pockets in the back are nice too, and I'd also like the plastic backs for riveting a tactical mount to the back of the driver's seat. (I do a lot of shooting and competitions)

I know I'd have to figure out harness crap, but can anyone think of any reason why it wouldn't work?

Originally Posted by Oh Six Mini

I am finally ready to swap the seats in my '06 R50 for seats from an R56. The air bag and Seat Belt contact sensor wires seem pretty straight forward. On the passenger side, the seat belt Tensioner wires seem straight forward, but it looks like the brown wires (ground) do not go to the black wires on the tensioner. (See photo below - sorry for it being so big) I have researched threads and it seems their is a load on the wire that the car monitors. If that is true, it would seem it would be okay if the wires were switched. It is NOT a positive and negative wire which must be correct. On the drivers side, the Black and Yellow wires seem to go to Yellow wire and a Blue/Yellow wire, respectively.


Next issue. The '06 R50 has a passenger seat occupancy sensor connector with three wires. The R56 seems to only have one wire for the seat occupancy sensor. There are six other wires in the harness which I assume all are for heated seats. My R50 did not have heated seats, so I am not going to worry about these. Need to know what to do with the three wires from the R50. (The wires are white/red/yellow, blue/violet and brown/black.)

I have searched the internet for hours looking for the answer and have come up empty. Hopefully, someone can help.

Thanks!

Originally Posted by gknorr

Your best bet for this wiring stuff is turning to a good reference - the Bentley manuals for the R53 and R56 should have the wiring diagrams for these. Alternately, you can see if you can find it online - search for WDS wiring diagrams - it's BMW's wiring diagram references. Good luck tracking it down!

Originally Posted by Oh Six Mini

I have the R50 Bentley manual, but am having a hard time deciphering it. It wouldn't tell me the R56 wires anyway.

I connected the wires to what I thought was correct after comparing the wires from the two seats. The seat belt light and the airbag light both came on. Still trying to troubleshoot to see if I can find what is wrong.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Originally Posted by kensic

following this thread, as i also have a 06 R50. and will be doing this mod.

its only been 10 days since i own this car, and leatherette oem seat already giving my lower back a hard time. :(

how much did you pay for you seats? and are they lounge ones? thanks

Originally Posted by Oh Six Mini

Kensic, I got the seats from a salvage yard. I am not sure what kind they are, but I only paid $53 for the pair. There was a small rip in the seam on the driver's side, which I used glue to repair. (It looks better in person than in the picture. I think the seats were from a 2008, but I don't remember for sure. I got the seats and the connectors from the car. I connected the wires from the R50 to the R56 connector so I could simply plug it into the seat. If I ever get better seats, I can just plug them in.

The swap was pretty easy. On the driver side, I used a brown wire that led to the heating element instead of the brown that led to the seat belt contact. This cause both the airbag light and the seat belt warning lights to come on. Once I figured out the problem and used the correct brown, all lights went off.