Well, I drilled about a quarter inch into the bolt with the left-turn 5/32" bit, and the bolt nub looked like it was starting to turn, so threaded in a #1 bolt remover, and out it came. Was a little worried that I did not manage to get my hole started dead center, but was done in 10 minutes Was tough going for the first 5 minutes or so until the bit started to really bite, but kept cleaning the threads of the bit and dipping it in some cutting oil. Phew - that stress is relieved. Now just need to know the thread pitch so I can find a replacement. If no one chimes in, I will just stop in to home dumpster or menards tomorrow and use their metric screw hole thingy to figure out the threads. Delayed, but not as delayed as it could have been. Honestly, if it had been replacing the A/C compressor, I would have seriously thought about an A/C delete.

 

Got it! Had a few extra bolts laying around from my recent rear suspension work and tried the closest looking size and it was perfect. The pitch of the A/C compressor clutch bolt if anyone else ever needs one is M6x1.0 and the length is 1.5 cm. I think there may be space in there for a flange head bolt, so will check my local parts places tomorrow.

 

And what started out as a heartbreaker of a evening with the breaking of that bolt ends in success - replaced the driver's side power door lock module just a few minutes ago. A bit more difficult that the passenger side because you have to line up the sort of gigantic phillips head door lock backside with its mating part on the door lock module. Took 3 tries to get that lined up. Then I had to finagle one difficult cable back into place. Overall, not a tough job, but definitely a lot of stuff to keep track of routing on and get back into the correct places.Happy to report that all of my power locks are now completely functional!

Picked up the driver side power lock module from Adrian Willoughby on one of the facebook MINI parts groups.

 

Just got word from Braum that my planted brackets have shipped and that the seats should be on a Fedex truck to me by the end of the week. About damn time!!!! I suppose none of this was their fault, but they certainly could have done a much better job communicating with me instead of allowing me to dangle until I reached out and asked what the hold up was. But I suppose when you have something like this custom made, expecting delays is a prereq. If I had originally thought of this as a 4-6 month delivery timeframe instead of a 3 month one, I suppose I would have been okay with it. Anyhow, have my donor airbag pigtails so I can extract the pins, solder in some resistors, and use the seat heater connectors to figure out the routing to the new heater mats and whether I will need new switches or not.

Starting to get excited about having the car back on the road!

 

Nicely done with drilling out the bolt.

I have never tried it with left-twist drill. Interesting that these exist.

 

Left-hand bits are the way to go when drilling out bolts. I've had pretty good luck with them and extractors in the past.

 

I did the same thing when I replaced my A/C clutch last fall. And had the same luck with left handed drill bits. I bought mine on amazon and they have saved my bacon a few times. I've had bad luck with extractors, but I've never tried them with left handed drill bits.

 

Wow, so what a day was today.

First thing this morning, I grab my keys and lock the door behind me. I realize by the second step down that I have the Mini Keys. Which don't have a house key. Quick - think... first lecture in 22 minutes. Call my buddy up the street that has a spare key when we travel. Nope, he's 30 miles away on a job. Tried the back window. I had locked it. Wife is driving to the southland to pick up another R53, so couldn't call her at work... Ugh... so walk to work, and send an email to our admin assistant telling the students to just go that I wouldn't be there in time. 20 minutes late for my first lecture, students are all there, waiting. I explained what happened and asked if the admin asst had come by - no. So, great start to the day.

Around 3, my buddy got home so I walked the 30 minute walk from campus up to his house - he had a voice lesson with someone (he's a musician), and grab the keys and walk to my place. Nope, my spare isn't on the set. So I did the credit card trick. Took a long time, but I did get the front door to open! (I have a deadbolt as well, but you can't lock that without the key from the outside). Anyhow, did a little dance when I got in.

Ran a package up to Fedex, and then started to work on the MINI. Got the front bumper cover on and mostly buttoned up from my water pump change-back-over, and Fedex shows up. They open up the back end and I see a really big box come out. Braum told me on Tuesday that my brackets shipped and that my seats would probably ship on Friday, so I expected the Planted brackets today, but not the seats! So, of course, I unboxed them! Box was a bit beat, but what was inside was just fine.


Surprise box that showed up. Hmm... wonder what it could be?

Was a bit worried when I took these out of the box and there was some broken plastic rattling around the bottom of the box and a couple small springs. When I looked, it looked as if it was a bit of broken toggle. These seats were in drawstring bags over the big, thick, robust protective plastic inner bags, so they were packaged pretty well and they had extra layers of cardboard all around the sides.


One had a broken draw sting toggle.

Color is a bit darker than the sample that they sent me, but they look good...



The stitching color is not what I would call cobalt blue, which is what the color in the photo they sent for thread matching looked like, but it is pretty close to the blue on my other trim piece items. But these seats look really, really nice. They are a good fit for my man sized butt as well. I have a 38" waist and sitting on these outside the car, they are stiff, but comfortable. I am kinda digging the shoulder wings. They are in a nice place and I think those will be supportive on longer drives.

 

Couple more detail shots a bit closer in.


Seat base.


Seat back.



3/4 view.

I was distracted by these showing up, so I did not get my coolant system burped, so still need to take car of that before moving on to getting the seats installed, but I anticipate by the end of the weekend you may see them in the car along with the weights of all components removed and re-added.

 

Well, things may not be correct... can't find the pigtails for the seat heaters that are supposed to be pre-installed... not tucked under along the sides or along the front or back. There is a zipper on the back cover, but not doing anything until I hear from Braum... stay tuned.

 

Bummed for you.

If it's any consolation, your seat shopping is helping me tremendously. 😉

 

... or said their supplier did. Which is true. But I received seats that I can't use here in ND in the late fall when the leatherette gets truly chilly. They said they would issue a refund for the heaters right away. I am documenting here how well they take care of sending the wrong seats to a customer. These seats are black leatherette with blue double stitching around the margins. I think they look better than their other offerings in the same seat with that weird looking CF-look vinyl. Anyhow - they should certainly be able to sell them to someone who doesn't care about heaters. They'll be out the bespoke fee, and shipping each way, but they should have inspected them when they received them before they were shipped to me.

I pointed all of this out, indicated that I am not interested in a partial refund or seats that do not have heaters and asked for a full refund. We will see together how Braum takes care of their mistakes. I may post an entire new thread in the interior forum with a lot of keyword spamming depending on their next actions.

Man, I am just having no love finding new seats. I think I'm just going to grab a pair of sport seats out of an R56 and have one of the leather seat makers build me a pair of new skins. I already have the full greys and blacks sample packet from leatherseats.com and I think from the other place too. Argh...

 

This sucks. I'm really disappointed for you, I know how hard you've been searching for the right seats.

Could you retrofit the heaters into your seats with heaters, either as a DIY or with a local shop doing the work? Perhaps the manufacturer could cover the cost?

 

Not having seat heaters really sucks in the cold. I have a Wrangler with vinyl seats and I have never sat in anything so cold and retains the cold for so long... 🥶

It seems that Braum might want to consider taking the seats back and putting in the heater and returning them to you. That might be less of a loss to them then just taking them back...

Have you looked at the Gen III JCW seats (link)? Maybe get a set from All Mag (NAM sponsor MINI recycler)?

Or the Gen II Recaro Seats? There was a European one and a US one. The US one might be an option, but might be hard to find.

If you go with the Gen II sport seats, I found that the base sports seat that came with the S had little or no lumbar support and the bottom offered no lateral support (wide bottom). Without that lumbar support, I couldn’t ride in them for more than an hour. When I ordered my 2nd R56 I ordered it with the optional sports seat that has an adjustable lumbar. These seats are identified by a **** on the inboard side of the seat back. These, for whatever reason, are far superior to the base sport seat, both in comfort and lateral support. This may not make a difference if you are going to have them re-built, but I thought I would let you know what you might want improve upon if you go that route.

 

Thanks for the comments guys - yep this sucks.

At this point, after having waited 6 months for a set of seats that had been promised in 3 (with production photos that I never received), I am ready to be done with this company. I am documenting here so that others can see how Braum treats their customers when they get things wrong - and admit to doing that. They'll be out shipping each way (which is definitely over a hundred bucks), but they got it wrong, and they didn't inspect the seats before shipping them to me. When I shipped back the Cobra seats that were just too small, I paid for that because that was on me - shipping those back with insurance was $258 via Fedex - and they were quite a bit lighter than these seats are because of the hardware, sliders, and these being a few lbs heavier each. But, they should be able to claim a fault from their supplier and recoup some of that cost from them, and then resell them as an in-stock item.

As far as the JCW and Recaros go - I actually *really* don't like the way those look. They look too 'honda-ey' for me. There are a couple of years of BMW 3 series sport seats that I like, but the conversion would be too troublesome (someone in the interior forum recently did a BMW swap - lots of work). Of the available options out there, I really like the Cobra Misano's - although I have grown away from the 25th anniversary quilted look and more toward the plain jane leather version. But at $2100 EACH to my door, they are just too dear. I also like the Status recliners, and I like the idea of being able to build them to spec, but when I do that, I am near the price of the Cobras - though I think they are just a tiny bit lighter. $4k for a pair of seats is a bit too much.

I do like the look of the gen 2 sport seats quite a bit, there are lots of conversion threads I can pick apart as needed, they have the plug in airbag, and I can find a pair with heaters. There are NONE locally, which is problematic. But, I plan on driving out to visit my parents in MA this summer, and there are a TON of gen 2 sport seats in junkies for less than 150 each. I'll pick up a nice pair and have leatherseats build me a pair of skins in the right color, with the cobalt double stitching (or maybe cobalt piping?) around the edges. I think those will look just awesome in the car. I know they will be heavier than what I am after, but I know they will look great, I know they will fit, and I know they will be (nearly) plug and play. And, I can get the EXACT color match to the interior. It's more waiting, but after dealing with this company, waiting is something I am used to.

 

Had my second COVID vaccine this past weekend, and had a general malaise and sluggishness today (which was a non-teaching day for me), so I stayed home. Documenting the entire return process here so that folks looking for information on the reputability of Braum can have something to go by. I let them know yesterday that vinyl seats without heaters are a no-go for me after they offered to reimburse for the seat heaters (~300 bucks). I will let everyone know whether they send me the return labels after they have already admitted the heaters were not installed, or whether I have to take it to Paypal.

Anyhow, did get some work done on the incorrect seats that Braum sent me. Their original shipping box was pretty battered when it was delivered, so I spent some time repairing it this morning. I took a corner out of a heavy duty box I had and spray adhesived the back side of the box and reinforced that damaged corner. Did the same to a big puncture that was in the side of the box.





Seats then went back into their original plastic bags after thoroughly documenting with photographs the condition of each seat's front, back, and both sides just in case. These were then put back into the original outer poly bags that Braum provides and back into the shipping box after the hardware went into the bottom between a sandwich of cardboard. Cardboard sleeving all the way around the inside, and I added additional bubble wrap for extra cushioning as well.





These are repackaged *better* than how I originally received them. I then went completely around the outer box in every conceivable direction with heavy-duty packing tape multiple, multiple times. As a vintage HIFI weenie, I know how to pack things - I have sent uber heavy 15" woofers, turntables, and 60lb tube amps through Fedex and never had an issue.

So, I gave Braum until the end of the day today to let me know whether they were going to take care of their return, or whether Paypal would be. I will document everything that happens somewhere in this thread.

 

PayPal saved my butt on a high end inverter I bought. I couldn’t get the company to talk to me after their 2nd “it will be shipped by the end of next week” email. Filed a complaint with PayPal, with all of my correspondence and I was reimbursed. It took a little while but worth the wait... Hope it all works out for you...

 

Edited. Braum appear to be doing the right thing, so giving them the benefit of the doubt for now.

 

So it does indeed look like Braum is stepping up. They offered to waive the bespoke fee, the seat heater fee, and add a 15% discount on top of that if I wanted to keep them and bring them to my own upholsterer. They said that if I still wanted to send them back, they would send me shipping tags to get the whole return process going. So, as sucky as this situation is for both myself (again, out seats) and Braum (out shipping 2 ways), they do appear to value customer service and making things right. And to give them credit - they did offer a pretty darn sizable discount and throw in a set of 4 point harnesses for how late the seats were - which was beyond their control.

I've decided to send them all back. I have almost no upholsterers in my neck of the woods (way up by Canada in north central ND) - it took me nearly a year of asking around to find someone who would reupholster a couch, and that took 3 months and was not perfect. I thought about doing it myself as well, but that is not something I want to take on right now. So, I asked for the return tags to be sent and they should be on their way back to Braum tomorrow hopefully. If you are reading this within a few weeks of this posting date and like the looks of this set of seats, keep an eye on Braum's website - there will be a pair of black Advans in plain leatherette with a logo delete and blue double stitching coming up in stock for probably a pretty good price. They would be great in a warmer climate though, as they have no seat heaters inbuilt.

 

Do you have a point of contact at Braum you would be willing to share? I would be interested in the seats for the right price, and figure they might be willing to give the best deal if I set it up so they shipped straight from you to me.

If you don't want to fool with it, I understand completely, just thought I would ask.

 

Not sure I want to take the risk right at this sensitive point in my dealings with them. It might be best for you to contact them about this set of seats directly after I get my refund or at least my shipping info. How about this: I will pm you the contact info after I get my RMA and confirmation of my return status and you can try to hash it out with them if you still want to?

They are *great looking* seats, and they seem pretty comfy and have lots of support. Nice height, and I'm over 6'. I just don't want to take the time, find an upholsterer, and fix their mistake for them.

 

That's what I was originally thinking, but I should probably pass. The chance to get a screaming deal temporarily clouded my judgment. I really need the opportunity to try on a seat before I buy them.

Thanks anyway.

 

No problems, man.

Teaser on a project I am working on in lieu of installing seats right now.

 

Is that practice for making your own seats?....

I admire your enthusiasm.

 

lol - maybe!!!