R56 Replacing whole seat with a heated one

Reply Subscribe

Thread Tools

Search this Thread

Dec 18, 2018 | 09:02 PM

EintrachtAdler

Thread Starter

1st Gear

Joined: Aug 2018

Posts: 26

Likes: 0

Replacing whole seat with a heated one

Hy guys,

So I have been kicking around in these forums for awhile, but have not been able to find a consensus on an idea I've had. I live in Pennsylvania and it can get pretty cold here and one thing I regret not having is a heated seat. I have seen some of the retrofit kits to install seat heaters myself, but the complexity and potential danger has turned me away from going that route. Instead, I was wondering if I could buy a drivers seat that already has seat heaters equipped and swap it for my current drivers seat in my '08 R56S. Does the car by default have the proper connections and I could just buy a new row of buttons for the dashboard to turn it on? Or would the job be much more complex than that?

I appreciate all the help and input guys!

Dec 19, 2018 | 07:20 AM

jcwcoopster

2nd Gear

Joined: Feb 2018

Posts: 134

Likes: 16

From: DFW

At a minimum your gonna have to change the control panel on the center stack. Probably going to need a new wire harness and perhaps coding. Some have done the retrofit. Just do search and you should see a number of posts.

Dec 28, 2018 | 06:43 PM

texasmontego

4th Gear

Joined: Sep 2008

Posts: 546

Likes: 56

From: Denver, CO

It’s not plug n play and you’re going to spend a ton more trying to swap seats and figure out how to wire them up. Just get a seat heater kit and add them to your existing seats. There’s tons of YouTube How-To videos and you’ll learn a thing or two about your car. It’s not as difficult as it seems. I just picked up a kit off Amazon to install in a friends car. 2 seats for $55.
http://WATERCARBON Tech Era Carbon F..._E4TjCbRQS4A4V

There is no complexity with these kits. 2 wires and mount the heating elements.

Do it and you’ll be really glad you did.

If you need assistance, just PM me and I’ll be happy to help. I’m not local, but I’ve installed a bunch of seat heaters over the years.

Jan 1, 2019 | 05:51 AM

MiniToBe

6th Gear

iTrader: (2)

Joined: Jan 2015

Posts: 4,339

Likes: 437

From: Philadelphia PA

First hand experience here.
I replaced the seats on my wifes countryman (non heated originally) with heated ones. I then replaced the dash comtroller that has the side buttons. Then, i ran 4 wires from the fuse box to the seats using newtis.info. after that, used NCS to code the fuse box and the controller to enable seat heating. That's it!