[fleetfoot]

Background
I’ve had my 2013 E92 328i for 11 years now and loved almost every minute of it. But the seats have never been my favorite, mostly because:
1) The lower back curves inward at the bottom forcing me to roll up a towel for back support
2) I didn’t want to pay $500 for the heated seat option, so my butt is always chilly in the winter

After sitting in a 4 series a few years back, I realized that I liked those seats a LOT more, so I had been pondering a seat swap. I did some initial research and found many long forum threads and slightly helpful youtube videos, but couldn’t find a good step-by-step guide. Despite my trepidation, I recently found a good set of used OG M2 seats and decided to take the leap. Halfway through the install at a low point I almost gave up, but now I’m going to provide this DIY so you can achieve a relatively low-stress seat swap.

Applicability
Through the forums I’ve learned that there are MANY different variations of seat retrofit due to LCI/non-LCI, vehicle options, and seat variations. This guide will be specific to my particular swap. I migrated F87 M2 (OG) seats to a 2013 LCI E92 that had full power seats, but no heat. It does seem that the M2 seats are very similar to F30/F22 seats, so this should be broadly applicable for F series seat swaps. You must have an LCI seat controller for this to work. Without an LCI controller, it’s my understanding that at a minimum the passenger seat heater will not work.

This guide describes the steps that worked for my specific situation. Your mileage may vary. I recommend using your best judgement.

Safety Considerations
The seat is a key safety component in any car. Before making any changes, you should consider the risks of alterations. When swapping an F series seat to an LCI E92, you will lose three existing features:
•Passenger Seat Occupancy Sensor: used to disable the airbag when the seat is empty or occupied by smaller individuals/pets. The occupancy sensor in the F series seat cushion is not readable by the e92 (from what I’ve read and what I’ve tried). Not having this feature means that the passenger airbags *should* always deploy in a crash. But kids/pets should really be in the back seat anyway. Note: this sensor has no effect on the coupe’s seatbelt assist function. The seatbelt will still get handed to you even with this sensor disabled.

•Active Head Restraints: this is a feature that pushes the headrest forward in the event of a crash to prevent whiplash. This feature doesn’t exist in F series seats.

•Passenger Seat Position Sensor: this sensor detects how far forward the passenger seat is positioned and adjusts the deployment of the airbag accordingly. This sensor doesn’t migrate to the F series seat rail, at least not easily on my car, which was missing the mounting holes.

Each of these missing features will cause an error code to appear after you migrate, but these can be coded out. You’ll have to decide for yourself if you are comfortable with the risk of no longer having these features.
You should also be aware that there is no way to test that other key safety features (e.g. airbags) will still be functional after the swap. Most guides operate off the assumption that swapping similarly colored wires will result in similar operation, but this is not guaranteed.

So use your best judgement, and decide what level of risk you’re comfortable with.

Basic Overview of the Install Process
1) Remove passenger seat

2) Configure M2 passenger seat for installation
a. Swap E92 seat belt receptacle over to the new seat
b. Swap E92 seat controller over to the new seat
c. Take pictures, then disassemble the E92 and M2 seat connectors, and create a wire migration map
d. Swap the E92 main connector over to the M2 seat connecting 5 wires in the right slots
e. Re-assemble the M2 seat connectors

3) Install M2 passenger seat into E92
a. Test basic controls
b. Turn on car and see what errors show up
c. Use Bimmergeeks ProTool to code out the three errors (occupancy, head restraints, seat position)

4) Repeat steps 1-3 for driver seat

5) Enable Heated Seats
a. Swap in HVAC controller panel
b. add seat heat to vehicle order with BimmerGeeks ProTool
c. test heated seats

With this approach you will have to code the car a few separate times, but I think it’s helpful to break up the install into modular sections to make troubleshooting easier.

To get a good idea of what the whole process will look like (but not with the level of detail that my DIY provides), check out these helpful videos:
a. Installing BMW F-series seats in E-series (M2 in E92 335i)
b. BMW E92 M3 Seat Upgrade - ** Fitting BMW M4 Seats **
c. HOW TO INSTALL M2 M3 M4 SEATS IN A E9X: WIRING EXPLANATION


Parts & Tools
note: you'll find links to the items I purchased in the attached PDF
1) F series seats $500-1000

2) E92 HVAC Control Panel with Heat $30-60
a. #64119292267
b. You just need the controller, not the surrounding panel
c. Look for a controller that isn’t scratched and doesn’t have worn fan buttons

3) Bimmergeeks ProTool Master License $160

4) Samsung Galaxy 8.7" Tab A7 Lite (if you don’t already have an Android device) $100

5) K+CAN OBDII Cable $28

6) USB-A to USB-C Adapter $9

7) Trim removal kit with wide/flat tool $11

8) Ratchet

9) T50 torx bit

10) 10mm socket

11) Metal pick set

12) Small zip ties

13) Needle-nose pliers

14) Torque wrench

Conclusion
The full 3000 word guide with decent pics is in the attached PDF. I tried posting the whole text in this post, but the formatting was terrible. I'll update the PDF as needed. Please let me know if you find any errors.

If anyone figures out how to get the passenger occupancy sensor working, please let me know.

Feel free to drop questions here, and I can share my opinion. I'm no expert, just some guy who waded through this whole process and managed to get my new M2 seats fully working! Hopefully my documentation is helpful for others.

[codeterrorist]

Thank you for this. I'll make sure to contribute to this thread or make a specific one for F30 seats on E90 LCI once I tackle my install.

Much appreciate your effort of creating this.

[fleetfoot]

Originally Posted by codeterrorist

Thank you for this. I'll make sure to contribute to this thread or make a specific one for F30 seats on E90 LCI once I tackle my install.

Much appreciate your effort of creating this.

Sure thing! Let me know if you run into any areas that aren’t clear and I can try to improve my guide. I did draft most of this up after I did the passenger seat but before I did the driver seat, so I “ate my own dogfood” while swapping the driver seat, and it worked out well.

[fleetfoot]

FYI I read back through things one more time with fresh eyes and made a few updates for clarity, including some better ProTool screenshots. The updated v1.1 is attached to the original post.