I've been holding off posting this for a while. I've fairly recently changed from a BMW 325i to a 1.4 16v Fabia. One of the many things I'll miss about the BMW is the comfort the seats provide. So, I decided that I would fit some E46 seats into my Fabia.

 

Luck has it that the mechanism width is the same, but the length of the BMW runners are slightly longer, so the holes front to back didn't quite line up. The bolt spacing front to back in the Fabia is 343mm and the BMW 364mm, so not a considerable difference.

 

As I have an Elegance with the sand coloured interior, I originally set about finding a front pair of manual beige coloured E46 sports seats. After approx. 2 months of checking eBay, I settled for a full set of black half leather electric seats...

 

This meant I would need to add wiring, not an issue as the E46 seats just require a positive and an earth, but the memory function would obviously no longer work. But, this turned out to be a much bigger job than I'd hoped with removal of the carpet necessary, and the trim that is notorious for breaking due to the difficult to remove retaining clips.

 

I managed to get hold of a pair of E46 vehicle side seat connectors, so that I could still use the original wiring on the seats. I swapped over the seat belt buckles to the Fabia ones, and cut short the bolt that is used for mounting these as the extra penetration interfered with the seat height adjustment.

 

I used the original front holes on the E46 seats, and drilled new holes at the rear. It just so workout out that an 8mm rivet is located in the perfect location, so drilling this out gave a hole exactly where I required for bolting the seat down. This rivet holds the rack for the electric adjust in place, so removing the rivet means that you cannot adjust the seat forwards and backwards without the rack moving out of position. I.e. you bolt the seat down at the front, then use the motor to move the seat forwards to access the rear mounting positions, but the rack pops out of place, and you need access to the front to get it back in place. I resolved this by using locking wire to hold the rack in place at the front.

 

I have run a permanent live power supply to each seat with 25A inline fuses from the power rail above the relay board. I have used one of the bolts around the gear lever for the earth.

 

Overall it wasn't too difficult of a job, but it would have been a huge amount easier if I had garage space and didn't have to keep lugging the seats up and down the stairs to our flat. For anyone wondering how much heavier the electric seats are than the standard Fabia ones, unfortunately I didn't weigh them, but it is a considerable increase.

 

Hopefully I'm the only person running electric BMW sports seats in a Fabia! I've attached a few pictures, and I'll get a photo of the job finished with the interior refitted too.

Edited 9 April, 201511 yr by peterlg

Pictures showing the rear hole created by drilling out the rivet, and my lounge/workshop.

Absolutely excellent mate, well done for thinking outside the box. Are you doing the rear seats as well? If your front seats are heated (fabia ones) they will sell for a fair amount to recoup some of the cost of the bmw seats

Nice one! Pics of them fitted?

Seats fitted:

 

 

Detail of the locking wire, holding the rack in place from the front. This is only required whilst the seats are not bolted in, although I will leave the locking wire in place so that if I have to take them out for anything, I don't have to redo the locking wire:

 

Absolutely excellent mate, well done for thinking outside the box. Are you doing the rear seats as well? If your front seats are heated (fabia ones) they will sell for a fair amount to recoup some of the cost of the bmw seats

 

 

Nice one! Pics of them fitted?

 

Thanks chaps. Yeah, my original sand Fabia ones are heated and in excellent condition, so they'll be up on eBay in the next few weeks.

 

I haven't fully decided on what I'll do with the rears. I think it looks ok for the time being with non matching seats as the rears just blend into the rest of the interior, but I know for sure I won't try and fit the BMW ones. As they are from a coupe they are really only designed for two people in the rear and the centre seat would be very uncomfortable. An option would be to recover a Fabia bench, or just leave it as is. Would be a shame to rip up the rear seats I've got installed too as they're immaculate.

Excellent job sir!

 

Would you not be better simply fitting a set of black standard rear seats so they match a bit more?

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SKODA-FABIA-5-DR-HATCH-2000-2007-SEATS-REAR-TRIM-N7B-/400872294608?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item5d55d9c8d0

Good work and another seating option for people to choose which doesn't look too difficult. Well done!

Excellent job sir!

 

Would you not be better simply fitting a set of black standard rear seats so they match a bit more?

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SKODA-FABIA-5-DR-HATCH-2000-2007-SEATS-REAR-TRIM-N7B-/400872294608?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item5d55d9c8d0

 

That may be a very good option. I didn't realise there were any plain black seats available for the Fabia. Shame they are in Peterborough, but I'll look out for a set closer by.

 

Good work and another seating option for people to choose which doesn't look too difficult. Well done!

 

Thank you. Overall, the difficulty wasn't too high. It would have been a much quicker job to fit manual seats though!

 

I was going to add these images to my original post, but being just a standard user, I cannot edit it now. I'll put them here just to save the need to click on the images in the first post. If an admin would like to move them, that would be great.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 10 April, 201511 yr by peterlg