vRS Heated leather seat retrofit

[Wangarai]

Having finally wired up my retrofitted heated leather seats I thought I’d put some info on the forum so it may help others.

 

I’d like to sincerely thank jackfrost & JohnnyType2 who offered great advice, helping a complete electrical novice to figure this out.

To do the retrofit you will need:

1.   Leather seat interior (eBay £300-£500). If like me you are changing a half leather vRS interior make sure you get all the trims if changing colour (I went from silver to red), i.e. hand break gaitor, leather armrest, gearstick and gaitor and steering wheel (although I’ve kept my silver stitched one). The front seats are heated and come with the wiring and 12-pin (female) plug.

 

2.    Climatronic panel with heated seat switches (5E0907044N, eBay, £40-£50)

 

3. Wiring harness – Kufatec make a heated seat wiring harness for the Mk7 Golf (MQB platform, the same as the Mk3 Octavia), this is what I’ve used (£66.50 including postage from Richter Sport). The Kufatec harness comes with installation instructions of where to wire into the BCM/fuse box/earth. I cross checked with the Skoda wiring schematics having downloaded these from Erwin.

 

4.    Male 12-pin connector plug (part number 7L0 972 762, AliExpress, about £18 for two). You could do this without the connector and just solder the wires together and heat shrink with plastic tubing. I wanted the option of easy disconnection of the seat wiring if needed in the future.

 

5.    Standard piggyback fuse (eBay, approx £2.00) and 25a fuses (I used two).

 

6. OBDeleven or VCDS to code the seats to the car.

 

You will also need some tools such as a wire stripper/crimping tool, snips, plastic trim removal tools, kneeler (if your knees are hammered, like mine), plasti-ties (to re-tie the wiring around the BCM plugs), de-pinning tools, multi-meter to check continuity of the wires in the harness once pins are changed over (see below).

 

Procedure:
Swap out the interior and give it a good clean. vRSAnt has a cracking guide on how to remove the seats:

On the Golf Mk7 wiring harness, change the 8-pin VW plug over to the 12-pin Skoda so that the harness will connect to the seats. I managed to reuse the crimps from the AliExpress male socket and attach these to the Golf Mk7 harness. There’s a video on YouTube that explains how to do this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OK7M4voWYOo) although I used small watchmaker flat head screwdrivers to prise out the neck of the crimps. Once the crimps were changed over, I checked continuity of each wire in the harness using a multi-meter. De-pin the redundant pins/wires on the AliExpress plug.

 

There is an extra wire in the Golf Mk7 harness that connects from BCM plug A to the (SC) fuse box behind the glovebox. You need to cut the female connector off and join the cable to the piggyback fuse (crimp or crimp and solder) and use 2 x 25A fuses in the piggyback.

Next you need to swap out the climatronic panel. Remove the radio fascia using removal keys (about £2 from eBay) and disconnect the radio, then remove the trim in front of the cimatronic panel and then the climatronic itself. Remove the wired connections, swap over and put the trim and radio back.

 

Now you’re ready to connect up the wiring harness. 

Before starting I disconnected the negative of the battery.

Remove both front seats, unscrew (10mm torx) four screws per seat, so that you can access the void under the carpet where the seat connections go.
On the passenger side remove the trim along the door base, having first removed the bonnet release lever, and then remove the side panel on end of the dash (to the left of the glove box) and the glovebox. Doing so will allow you to get your hands in to the BCM plugs to remove them. See JohnnyType2’s comments in this thread: 

 
Remove all three plugs (A, B & C) from the BCM. You will need to connect wires & spades (male connector) to Plug A and C. The “extra” wire is connected from the BCM plug A to the fuse box (SC26 with 25a fuses). Once wired up, replace the plasti-ties around the neck of the BCM plugs and reinsert them into the BCM.

Connect the earth to the earth point beneath the insulation at the door sill and run the cable along the existing harness and feed the male heated seat connector into the void beneath the seat and connect the male/female plugs.

On the driver side; I initially just ran the wire over the centre console and connected the male & female heated seat plugs together to check all was ok.
Now you can reconnect the battery and start the car. Clear all fault codes with OBDeleven or VCDS. Then go to 09 Central Electrics and under long coding look for the byte that mentions heated seats, select it and change to heated front seats and code/save. Unfortunately, I can’t recall the exact wording but it’s more or less as described; you are only changing one setting.

The seats should now be working 

The wiring harness from the BCM to the driver’s side can be routed up behind the glovebox and the radio fascia (remove to access the void to the rear) and then run down behind the carpet at the pedals and along the door sill where the existing wiring is. Then earth to the earth point on the sill and connect the male/female heated seat plugs in the void beneath the seat.

 

Replace all trim, glovebox and side panel and bask in the warmth of heated seats. Just in time for spring 

Edited 20 November, 2019 by Wangarai

[john999boy]

Thanks for this. 

BTW I've moved it to the Guides section so it doesn't get lost.

[vRSAnt]

Balls of Steel doing this.....reminds me when I took on wiring up cruise on my Fabia vRS when it was still quite brand new and in warranty .....:D

Bonkers...still works though lol.

[vRSAnt]

Hey are you pleased with the leathers btw ?
For me they don't seem "recaro" quality but are good enough and definitely better than what was in it and adding the heated like you have is just icing on the cake

The cloth really seems low rent to me its crazy they put such good seats with such basic material as it looks odd with leather/cloth combo to me, so you must be chuffed.
They seem to easily dent as in your pics can happen with poor storage, handling or whatever but don't worry they seem to just even out after enough normal use, mine have mostly anyway as there were some "creases or dents" like that they seem prone to strangely.

[Wangarai]

I'm very pleased with the seats, a great improvement on the standard vRS seats (albeit the difference is the seat covering and heating elements; the seat itself is the same).

 

They really finish off the car and he red/black is a good match to the red calipers and my red/black roof rails and bike carriers. My colleague did laugh when she asked if I had chosen my site boots (red/black Dunlop shorty wellies) to match my car. Now that would be really sad 

 

Granted the seats are not in the same league as the Audi S-Line seats or the Recaros in Fords (I'm an ex-Ford enthusiast) but they look good and are easy to keep clean which, having two young children, is very important!

 

I've removed some of the bumps/dents in the seat using a heat gun and wetting the leather, it was only the passenger seat that had an indent, so much improved 

[chris125]

Hi thanks grwat info on how to do the install on the heated seats. Do you know if there is a way to get the electric motors to work??

[Wangarai]

From what I can recall (I think) that all electrics (seat motor & heater) are via the single 10pin connector for each seat. Your best bet would be to download the wiring schematics for Erwin - there is reference to "J810 Driver seat adjustment control unit, under driver seat" which includes additional wires. I don't know if the driver seat control unit part of the seat structure, or a separate module?

[Vilho]

@Wangarai Hi, Do you know is there difference in vRS backseats between Wagon and Hatchback?

[Wangarai]

@Vilho I'm not altogether sure. I suspect the backseat may be the same, but the door cards will differ?

 

It may be worth reviewing an online parts catalogue to see if there are different part numbers for wagon / hatchback. I had a quick check of the Body Work manual, Section 72 - Seat Frames, however there is no mention of difference in the installation/removal of the rear bench.

[Vilho]

8 hours ago, Wangarai said:

@Vilho I'm not altogether sure. I suspect the backseat may be the same, but the door cards will differ?

 

It may be worth reviewing an online parts catalogue to see if there are different part numbers for wagon / hatchback. I had a quick check of the Body Work manual, Section 72 - Seat Frames, however there is no mention of difference in the installation/removal of the rear bench.

Okay. thanks for your answer, need to check that more closely.

[Sampower]

hello sir ,looking for you help 
i upgraded my interior from non electric seats to electric vrs seats 
all i want is just to make it move and save position 
i dont really want to make my tooot hot haha
could you help with the wiring 
i allready ordered the connector from ali express 

[yerbito]

Hi. 
can you tell me the Kufatec and Aliexpress wires link to do this on my ‘13 Octavia mk3?

thanks so much. 

[STU3Y]

Hi,

 

A great write up, definitely made me consider giving this a go.

 

I have a 2017 vrs, with fabric seats. I want to keep the seats but get the heated inserts.

 

Had anyone done a retro fit with the genuine inserts, rather than replacing the actual seats

[STU3Y]

Am I right in thinking to do this on my Mk3 Vrs,

 

I would need the seat inserts, climate control panel with heated seat buttons and the kufatec loom.

 

Is there anything else I would need other than to sort the coding after install? 

[STU3Y]

Does the climate control panel have component protection and need pairing with odis after install?

[STU3Y]

No one able to help?

 

[langers2k]

No component protection for the climate panel on a mk3...

 

It'll might need coding and basic settings etc running after fitting though.

[STU3Y]

Anyone done this, but fitted the pada themselves to existing seats?

[STU3Y]

OK so today i installed the wiring and control panel. 

 

I am still waiting for the seats pads to arrive.

 

Once I installed the new control panel with heated seats buttons, I tested the buttons and they lit up as expected and displayed the seat levels on the infotainment display.

 

There was also an option for heated steering wheel.

 

I noticed that the sync buttom my new panel seemed to be operating like a left hand drive (passenger one controlled both dials). 

 

I assume my unit was from LHD. I changed the setting to RHD, but didn't do anything. Randomly I plugged the old unit back in and coded RHD again, then plugged the new one in and it seemed to solve the issue. Don't ask me how?.

 

The problem I have now is, after the sync started working the heated seat level no longer displays in the infotainment screen. 

 

Any ideas?

Edited 3 March by STU3Y

[logboy55]

On 22/10/2021 at 06:28, Sampower said:

hello sir ,looking for you help 
i upgraded my interior from non electric seats to electric vrs seats 
all i want is just to make it move and save position 
i dont really want to make my tooot hot haha
could you help with the wiring 
i allready ordered the connector from ali express 

@Sampower

Did u end up doing this? I wanted some help with this too. 

[STU3Y]

On 03/03/2024 at 17:42, STU3Y said:

OK so today i installed the wiring and control panel. 

 

I am still waiting for the seats pads to arrive.

 

Once I installed the new control panel with heated seats buttons, I tested the buttons and they lit up as expected and displayed the seat levels on the infotainment display.

 

There was also an option for heated steering wheel.

 

I noticed that the sync buttom my new panel seemed to be operating like a left hand drive (passenger one controlled both dials). 

 

I assume my unit was from LHD. I changed the setting to RHD, but didn't do anything. Randomly I plugged the old unit back in and coded RHD again, then plugged the new one in and it seemed to solve the issue. Don't ask me how?.

 

The problem I have now is, after the sync started working the heated seat level no longer displays in the infotainment screen. 

 

Any ideas?

So i have sorted this. It was previously fitted to a LHD, so is now changed to right and syncing correctly. Turned out it just needed a couple of minutes with the ignition off for the coding to take. 

 

With regards to the heated seat levels showingon infotainment screen, i have discovered these only show when the heated wheel is coded and shown to multi stage, ao at least i know nothing is wrong. 

[STU3Y]

So just installed everything today. 

 

For anyone the is going to do thsi by inserting pads rather than buying the sears, here are a few pics of what to expect in a Mk3 Vrs fabric seat

 

First I took the last seats out, undoing the 4 multi spline bolts. I found it easier to lay the seat flat and remove it via the back door as there is less chance of damaging the dash etc. 

 

Once out I removed the plastic compartment underneath, which was a few torx screws.

 

I then removed the side plastics, these were held in by little plastic pin clips. You push the oin in the it allows the main body of the clip to be pulled out.

 

There are a few clamps inside that just need prying open with a screw driver or trim tool.

 

I then removed the metal rails that the plastic clips too. This is a few torx screws also.

 

Having done that you get access to the covers. Start with the base cover. They take a bit of encouraging to get off, but you basically unclip the fabric from each side underneath. It is like a U shaped plastic that slots over the frame. Once you start taking it off the rest gets easier. 

 

After all the front and side are done, the foam will lift up freely. On these seats there are no wires connected to the foam base. They are only connected to the bakc rest. 

 

Now is the time to undo the 4 multi spline bolts that hold the backrest to the base frame. 

 

Once these undo, you can lift the backrest off. BE CAREFUL as there is not much free play in the cable that is still clipped the underside of the base frame. 

 

You can move it away enough to get to the back of the base. Again unlcip the cover from the back. This will then free up the entire base foam and cover.

 

Now this is off you can start peeling the cover off. Both sides and front and back will lift off. 

 

However the cover is held with 4 hog ties each side of the seam. It also has plastic v groove clips along the back seam. 

 

 

The above pics are the sides

 

 

[STU3Y]

I used Long nose pliers to start opening the hog tie, and then one there was enough room I used Cir'clip pliers to open them fully. 

 

 

once the cover was away, i removed the hog tie and put it aside to be re used when putting things back together.

 

Having removed all hog ties on both sides I was left with the v groove clips, one row at the front edge of the cross hatch stitching, and one at the back

 

For ease and to prevent damage, i just slid the cover slowly out of one side. This stopped me having to lever theem open, which is needed on the back rest later.

 

You are now left with this

[STU3Y]

Now I fitted the heated seat pad. It is shaped perfectly to the seat so you can't really get this wrong.

 

The only important thing is to take your time and make sure you fold the joins into the gaps properly to stop them breaking when you reassemble the cover.

[STU3Y]

Now you can refit the cover.

 

This is it, inside out after removal, you can see the holes where the hog ties go.

 

I used the original hog ties and hog tie pliers I bought from Amazon 

 

 

Insert the hog tie, loop one emd through the gap in the seat cover, then push down into the channel gap on the Seat base. As soon as you see the hog tie go under the retaining rod, squeeze the pliers and job done!