[Variante Alta]

Hey festers...I have been the recipient of a great deal of advice and knowledge from these BMW enthusiast websites...time for another bit of wisdom from my own DIY experience. I have a Black on Saddle 2017 F31d loaded but without M Sport. The original seats in the car were, well, crappy at best...downright horrible at worst...flat, unsupportive and ugly. They just had to go. I would have ordered the car with Sport options but it was a 'Drive Your Brand' sale with super low mileage and a great price so I bought it knowing upgrades were part of the deal. I've added an M3 steering wheel (all leather, even the bag), 403M staggered wheels, M Performance brakes (370/345), blacked out front bumper, tint, Sport gear shifter, numerous coding upgrades, blah, blah, blah. Sport springs in the garage waiting to be installed. Very happy with the car now.

A major missing piece was the sport seats...with the saddle interior, finding matching sport seats was difficult (in fact impossible). To the best of my knowledge, BMW never produced the sport seat in saddle leather (more on that momentarily). After looking pretty religiously for the last two years, I came across what looked like saddle sport seats from a 2018 430i...perfect shape, good price. What I didn't realize was these were not saddle brown sport seats, they were Cognac sport seats. (VIN check). Crap! Hmmm...what to do. Researched the colour difference, examples, discussion...seems the Cognac is a little yellower then saddle...Crap 2! They were also listed (Car-Part.com) as vinyl (ie. Sensatec)...Crap 3! More research...no Cognac Sensatec option for the 2018 430i in NA. Okay, they're leather. Good. Now, the colour...seems really close...take the chance? Done...gotta give it a go.

Seats ordered and delivered to a US UPS store close to me...swap out the passenger seat first...all good...functions work. Swap out the driver seat...all good...power functions and memory all work...whew. Colour? Very very close...frankly no one would notice absent a nudge from me that they are a different colour. Damn they look great in the car! Time to head home.

Crap 4 happens...red warning - Driver Safety Restraint fault...argh! Only the driver side...interesting. I did not swap out the control modules on either seat but I did keep the originals from the car (but not handy...long story). Get home and try to clear the codes with my scanner...no luck. Perhaps I need to code Sport Seats in e-sys? Find the Salapa code and FA code Sport Seats. No luck...still throwing SRS fault. . Now what? Use my code reader (Foxwell 510) to search around for a way to clear the codes...the sport seats and regular seats have the same side airbags and pretensionsers so it's surprising that the car has an issue with the new seat from an SRS perspective. WTH?? More and more research...hard to find the exact same DIY but some Bimmer folks suggest using the original seat modules in the new seats...Crap 5...they are not handy (long story). Hmmm...more research leads me to ISTA+ and the possibility of coding the new seat module to the car...great - lets do it.

Tremendous thanks to the awesome guys who put together the ISTA+ install thread...followed the instructions to a T...get ISTA installed and connected to the car first time! Whew! Fantastic software but I've not used it before. Read, read, read...test out a few functions carefully. It reads the seat module fault...tells me it can not communicate with the module...hmmm...check the connections...everything works (seat heat, memory, bolsters, lumber)...can't be a faulty module, right? Beats head against wall. Loses sleep. Crap 6...

I finally decide I need the darn original seat module as there is something wrong with the driver's seat one that came with the sport seat. The passenger side works just fine with no codes and was not original to the car...so it cannot just be that you must have the original modules. ISTA cannot code it to the car...still throwing SRS code but working otherwise. Ugh...drive 90 minutes to retrieve the original module...change it out (after letting the car go firmly to sleep with the doors open so I can work on it)...Fire it up...functions work fine...start the car...baited breathe...no SRS fault!!! Hot damn!!! It worked!!! Whew 2...

What's the lesson here? If you are going to swap out the crappy original seats for sporties, please keep your original modules...just in case. As the passenger seat worked without issue I gotta think that it's not necessary to code the module to the car manually - it must be that the seat module that came with the sport seat was damaged somehow despite the fact the everything worked perfectly except the SRS code (the pretensioners had blown on both sports seats so I replaced them with my originals - did that muck up the one module?). I was also installing 2018 seats in a 2017 so there were no issues with CAN and different part numbers...everything was the same. My advice? Get the sport seats, for sure! Just hope you have black ones or even Oyster...so many available. If you're saddled with saddle (I like the colour really), then search hard - so worth it! They are dramatically better in every way than the original stock non-sport seats.

Hope this helps someone at some point..again, shout out to the coding guys (you know who you are)...amazing knowledge and dedication to this community! It didn't exactly solve my problem but did lead me to understand that the module was faulty somehow despite it seemingly functioning properly. Cheers folks!

[IK6SPEED]

Originally Posted by Variante Alta

Hey festers...I have been the recipient of a great deal of advice and knowledge from these BMW enthusiast websites...time for another bit of wisdom from my own DIY experience. I have a Black on Saddle 2017 F31d loaded but without M Sport. The original seats in the car were, well, crappy at best...downright horrible at worst...flat, unsupportive and ugly. They just had to go. I would have ordered the car with Sport options but it was a 'Drive Your Brand' sale with super low mileage and a great price so I bought it knowing upgrades were part of the deal. I've added an M3 steering wheel (all leather, even the bag), 403M staggered wheels, M Performance brakes (370/345), blacked out front bumper, tint, Sport gear shifter, numerous coding upgrades, blah, blah, blah. Sport springs in the garage waiting to be installed. Very happy with the car now.

A major missing piece was the sport seats...with the saddle interior, finding matching sport seats was difficult (in fact impossible). To the best of my knowledge, BMW never produced the sport seat in saddle leather (more on that momentarily). After looking pretty religiously for the last two years, I came across what looked like saddle sport seats from a 2018 430i...perfect shape, good price. What I didn't realize was these were not saddle brown sport seats, they were Cognac sport seats. (VIN check). Crap! Hmmm...what to do. Researched the colour difference, examples, discussion...seems the Cognac is a little yellower then saddle...Crap 2! They were also listed (Car-Part.com) as vinyl (ie. Sensatec)...Crap 3! More research...no Cognac Sensatec option for the 2018 430i in NA. Okay, they're leather. Good. Now, the colour...seems really close...take the chance? Done...gotta give it a go.

Seats ordered and delivered to a US UPS store close to me...swap out the passenger seat first...all good...functions work. Swap out the driver seat...all good...power functions and memory all work...whew. Colour? Very very close...frankly no one would notice absent a nudge from me that they are a different colour. Damn they look great in the car! Time to head home.

Crap 4 happens...red warning - Driver Safety Restraint fault...argh! Only the driver side...interesting. I did not swap out the control modules on either seat but I did keep the originals from the car (but not handy...long story). Get home and try to clear the codes with my scanner...no luck. Perhaps I need to code Sport Seats in e-sys? Find the Salapa code and FA code Sport Seats. No luck...still throwing SRS fault. . Now what? Use my code reader (Foxwell 510) to search around for a way to clear the codes...the sport seats and regular seats have the same side airbags and pretensionsers so it's surprising that the car has an issue with the new seat from an SRS perspective. WTH?? More and more research...hard to find the exact same DIY but some Bimmer folks suggest using the original seat modules in the new seats...Crap 5...they are not handy (long story). Hmmm...more research leads me to ISTA+ and the possibility of coding the new seat module to the car...great - lets do it.

Tremendous thanks to the awesome guys who put together the ISTA+ install thread...followed the instructions to a T...get ISTA installed and connected to the car first time! Whew! Fantastic software but I've not used it before. Read, read, read...test out a few functions carefully. It reads the seat module fault...tells me it can not communicate with the module...hmmm...check the connections...everything works (seat heat, memory, bolsters, lumber)...can't be a faulty module, right? Beats head against wall. Loses sleep. Crap 6...

I finally decide I need the darn original seat module as there is something wrong with the driver's seat one that came with the sport seat. The passenger side works just fine with no codes and was not original to the car...so it cannot just be that you must have the original modules. ISTA cannot code it to the car...still throwing SRS code but working otherwise. Ugh...drive 90 minutes to retrieve the original module...change it out (after letting the car go firmly to sleep with the doors open so I can work on it)...Fire it up...functions work fine...start the car...baited breathe...no SRS fault!!! Hot damn!!! It worked!!! Whew 2...

What's the lesson here? If you are going to swap out the crappy original seats for sporties, please keep your original modules...just in case. As the passenger seat worked without issue I gotta think that it's not necessary to code the module to the car manually - it must be that the seat module that came with the sport seat was damaged somehow despite the fact the everything worked perfectly except the SRS code (the pretensioners had blown on both sports seats so I replaced them with my originals - did that muck up the one module?). I was also installing 2018 seats in a 2017 so there were no issues with CAN and different part numbers...everything was the same. My advice? Get the sport seats, for sure! Just hope you have black ones or even Oyster...so many available. If you're saddled with saddle (I like the colour really), then search hard - so worth it! They are dramatically better in every way than the original stock non-sport seats.

Hope this helps someone at some point..again, shout out to the coding guys (you know who you are)...amazing knowledge and dedication to this community! It didn't exactly solve my problem but did lead me to understand that the module was faulty somehow despite it seemingly functioning properly. Cheers folks!

The Drivers side ECU on Individual Interior I purchased was also defective, as were the tensioners.

Used the parts from my old seats as well.

[obert]

Good info. I am getting ready to swap seats from base to sport.

[Variante Alta]

Originally Posted by obert

Good info. I am getting ready to swap seats from base to sport.

You will be happy I promise!

[obert]

Thanks and I am making a long road trip so I can sit my but in the new seat on the way back

[obert]

Originally Posted by IK6SPEED

The Drivers side ECU on Individual Interior I purchased was also defective, as were the tensioners.

Used the parts from my old seats as well.

Never mind