[foxy-stoat]

Well ebay strikes again !!!

I won a full leather trim for my E91 which looked in very good condition in the photos, came from a front ended 335i sport with low mileage. The drives front seat belt retractor had gone off, but airbag didnt, so just a quick swop over should sort that. Got delivered and all looked pretty good, no wear at all and all clean.

You lot may of seen it on the 'bay, it was too far away to view but worth a punt and the guy was gonna deliver it.

So went to fit the rear seats and noticed the rear of the double seat had a crease, the seat was BENT and didnt line up....looked like there was something in the back when the guy crashed.

Managed to remove the leather cover and plan to swop the material over next weekend on my existing seat back, not too much of a biggy but a few hours more work than I thought.

May do a write up if anyone is interested.

[wayne71]

Yes please do, I'd be very interested.

[foxy-stoat]

Will do !

Actually, looking back at the photos of the auction it looks out of line, but didnt spot it!



The smaller seat back is ok and lines up well with my existing rear double.

[chrismanchr]

I'm very intrested also ,i bought an e92 325i fairly high spec'd but with cloth seats lol i wanna change them ,I keep looking on ebay at full interiors and I'm gonna go for one once ive saved up enough pennies

[E91Driver]

Looking forward to the write up mate - something I always wanted to do was to swap out the interior but never had the balls.

Going to get pop corn now....

[foxy-stoat]

Gonna start this tomorrow....its a bit more than just swoping the interior, gotta strip the seat back completely to get the leather cover on.....gulp!

[foxy-stoat]

Just finished the rears, already fitted the door cards as I needed to replace one of the door locking actuators. Door cards are pretty easy, carefully remove the silver trim and undo the 3 torx bolts, lever the bottom and the card just un-pops. When fitting you need to be careful when lining up the white plastic clips in the holes, otherwise they will break.

Anywho - this is what I started with:



First off, lever up the seat base in each corner, it just pulls out.



Unbolt the seat belt from the floor. Feed thru the seat belt and remove the base.

Pull the sidey bit up a bit and they just pull out.



Unbolt each side of the seat backs, drop them down.



They need to be at an angle for them to pull apart, if you want to protect the covers, lay a towel underneath.



These need a wiggle but they will just release themselves.

Thats the seats out, now for the cover:

As I already took the leather trim and sponge off the bent seat back and mullered most of the fragile plastic bits, I learned how not to do it!

Unbolt the arm rest using an allen key.



Next we need to remove the piece of rear carpet to access the little white clips that hold the plastic bit on the back of the arm rest, find the 2 holes and push the white things thru.



Next you we need to unclip the other side of the plastic piece, theres 2 plastic clipy things, use the screwdriver to prise the plastic off them. Your not trying to remove the plastic only so that you can access the sides of the cover, I dont work out how to remove it completely without breaking it!! I am sure its possible but not necessary.

Next run a screwdriver round the edge of the rear seat carpet so you can unclip the cover all the way around.



Now turn the seat the other way up, you need to unclip the metal bars that hold the sponge and cover, theres 2 near where the arm rest bolts up, 3 on the long side underneath that plastic bit and 2 at the top of the arm rest bit (you have to unclip these a little later on tho, sorry not explaining it well but cant be arsed to circle all the areas as its obvious when you start to unpick it. I took a few picks but they didnt really show that much.



You should be able to pull the sponge and cover up in one piece, I unpick the leather one as I didnt know you didnt need to!



Oops, forget to mention, unbolt the side bit first !!





Now pop the headrests out, remove the little circle covers, slide a screwdriver inside and poke in the holding ridges, so of them only have 1. Next pull them out, they are a bit fiddling but will come out!



Now unclip this little sucker as the trim goes behind.



Unbolt the seatbelt plastic and feed thru the cover.



You can now access the top area of the arm rest, poke up the metal tabs, there are 2, and unclip the metal rod, not sure if the pic makes sence.





You can now carefully remove the sponge and cover from the metal back.



Now re-fit the leather cover with sponge in reverse, taking care not to rip, slip or chafe the nice cover.



You just need to press the rear carpet in place and the cover folds and clips in.

This is what the bent seat back looked like, I very much doubt that you will come across this much!



Refitted seats back in the car, much better:



I am sure that buying a secondhand set of seats will be cheaper than buying the covers from BMW so this "guide" is probably only useful to someone repairing their covers.

Next will be the fronts!

[pjs]

Good effort, nice to see an informative thread

[foxy-stoat]

Finally got some wiring looms off an ebay guy so going to tackle the fronts at the weekend. Already bought and fitted the heated seat & a/c panel.

The wiring looks really small compared to the standard BMW loom which was chopped from the donor vehicle tho.....



I can probably reproduce these looms a lot cheaper than what I bought them for as I know how long and what connectors go where and use thicker wire, but I would of thought that the BMW wiring is overkill and this retro fit kit will be sufficient thickness to cope with the heated seat panels in the new seats.....seperate power and ground wires will need to be added to this loom as these looms assume you have electric seats already and you are just adding the heat panels.

[Baby Dave]

Wow

[mowflow]

Great write up with loads of pics. The seat heating sounds interesting, you're a DIY hero.

[foxy-stoat]

Thanks but I wouldnt say Hero!!! If it knew what the end cost would be in the first place, I would of probably saved myself some time and bought a M-Sport to start

[Pwalo]

Nice work mate - I thought about this for my E91 Se but now I have decided against it -for the same reason you quoted - costs. yours looks good though.

[foxy-stoat]

Cheers...well fitted to looms to the fuse box today but no pictures, was a mare trying to drop the fuse box but got there in the end.

Will defo get the M Sport next time!

[E91-Gaz]

Had to register on here to say cheers for this guide it worked a treat....

Like you after thinking I got an ebay bargain what I hadn't noticed is the rear middle seat belt had been cut off rather than unbolted! For anyone reading this and wondering if you can replace the middle rear seat belt the answer is no you have to replace the whole seat back!

The above guide was great though and all was done within a couple of hours although I'll be ordering 4 new headrest guides from BMW as I spent about an hour trying to get them out and in the end reverted to brute force....Nevermind!

Cheers Foxy Stoat....

[foxy-stoat]

Originally Posted by E91-Gaz

Had to register on here to say cheers for this guide it worked a treat....

Like you after thinking I got an ebay bargain what I hadn't noticed is the rear middle seat belt had been cut off rather than unbolted! For anyone reading this and wondering if you can replace the middle rear seat belt the answer is no you have to replace the whole seat back!

The above guide was great though and all was done within a couple of hours although I'll be ordering 4 new headrest guides from BMW as I spent about an hour trying to get them out and in the end reverted to brute force....Nevermind!

Cheers Foxy Stoat....

You can replace the centre belt, the cover and spong needs to come off and drill out a few rivites.

Glad my "guide" helped though....I have a load of guides that arent broken...you can have them if you want if the stealers charge too much, assuming my 2 and a half interiors dont sell on ebay for £25 start bid in a few days!!!

[E91-Gaz]

Yeah I did see the rivets but i wasn't sure what I'd be faced with once I'd drilled the rivets and removed the cover I don't think BMW sell the middle belt separately do they?

Cheers for that I'll be calling the dealers tomorrow to order them...hoping they won't be too dear though

[foxy-stoat]

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts...19&hg=52&fg=20

Doesn't look like the rear seat belt has a part number?!

[Josh1a1h]

Thank You! Very Useful!

[jamiro]

Originally Posted by foxy-stoat

You can replace the centre belt, the cover and spong needs to come off and drill out a few rivites.

Glad my "guide" helped though....I have a load of guides that arent broken...you can have them if you want if the stealers charge too much, assuming my 2 and a half interiors dont sell on ebay for £25 start bid in a few days!!!

Hi, the center seat belt on my e91 was removed and I would like to mount there a used one. Could you help me how to process? Is it possible to put back the black shield that covers the belt (that is visible in one of you photograph). What exactly does hold on the rivets? I am asking before I buy the center belt.
Great job btw.

[foxy-stoat]

Hi

That cover is held on by a couple of bolts and 2 or 3 rivets....You will need to part remove the fabric cover and the carpet thats stuck on the back.

[jamiro]

Thanks for a quick reply.
You say partly... It means than that is it possible to start uncovering the fabric from the upper part. Right? I just don`t want to break something or cut the leather.