BMW E90 Seat Swap - Active Headrests

Swapping Active Headrests from old seats to new seats to stop airbag errors.

[@TonyJvideos]

Well explained. To save a lot of work make sure you buy LCI seats for an LCI car.

[@testIsuru]

perfect Video and its well explained. currently I am having the same issue after I plan to upgrade the fabric seats into leather.

[@bluemoth1879]

Brilliant 🥂🥂👍

[@bastaboom163]

Thanks for the video mate ! Helped a lot 👍

[@samshackleford6836]

Hey, thanks so much for making this! Where does the loom that runs under the seat plug in that comes from the headrest connector?

[@silasgwangwa4384]

I remember replacing seat detector

[@Mo_Auto]

Hi mate, where’s the video on the passenger mat sensor! We need that😂😭. Anyway we could get in touch/an explanation of the process would appreciate it a lot!

[@Jamesfroudmusic]

Thanks for posting this! In exactly the same situation with some cream leather seats to put in my E90 ED. Been scratching my head as to what the extra cables were! What is the verdict with hindsight, is it with the trouble?

[@MrScififan]

Jamesfroudmusic glad it helped - I’m still enjoying my cream leather seats in my e90 ED, in hindsight definitely worth the effort - didn’t realise I also had to swap over the occupancy sensor but now it’s like the car came with cream leathers from the factory

[@magincap70]

@@MrScififan is the occupancy sensor or headrest married to the chassis? Could I just buy a new seat with an occupancy sensor and keep the original headrest?

[@cpesefarade257]

Sorry for the long post , safety first!! So I just swapped LCI non-sport seats ( bmw 328xi sedan 2011) for pre-LCI sport seats ( bmw 335xi 2007) I've got power and memory working, but I have an airbag light ( PASS. RESTRAINT SYSTEM) and seatbelt light on my dash ( while my seat belt is clearly on) I know the sport seats pre-LCI seats do not have active headrests, so is that the cause of the airbag light? What about the seatbelt light? - I did disconnect the battery before unplugging the airbag modules and waited 30 mins - Air bags NEVER deployed on these seats - Seat belt buckles never deployed . From what I understood theres 2 options out there .. 1. Keep the non AHR headrests & code them out ? (defeating safety features ?) ( pre lci) 2. Remove the non AHR headrests and install my original AHR headrests (LCI) , have no idea how to make this happen! I presume the white connector under my seat ( left unplugged ) is the Active headrest is the reason why that happened ? the carly wont erase the code I just want to ensure all safety features are working first (e.g. primary steering wheel air bag , Side curtain airbags in seat , passenger occupancy , seatbelt firing etc..)

[@cpesefarade257]

can i just add a resistor to make the module believe i have active head rest on the new sport seats or would it just be easier to use my oem headrest and manage to run the wire down the seat and plug it underneath! thankyou so much for posting this + help

[@MrScififan]

Hello mate - sounds like you've run into the exact same problem I had. The car will throw up every airbag error if it's just the active headrests that are disconnected as it's all part of the same system. It's completely up to you on whether you want to use a resistor to fool the ECU into thinking the Active Headrests are still there, but I chose the 'safest' option and wanted my active headrests to deploy in the worst case scenario. I took the unit out of my old seats and fitted it into my new seats and ran the wire down - and reconnected back into the white connector. Only thing you will have to do now the Air bag errors have been thrown is clear the errors using Carly or another similar tool. The other problem I had was the occupancy sensor that was in the new seats was a different model from that of the old seats and this was also causing airbag errors for me. Carly should be able to read the codes and one of them might be the occupancy sensor complaining it's the 'incorrect type' - now you could recode the car to the new sensor (I'm not really up to speed on how this is done) - or you could do what I did and unpick the seat cover from the old seat and put the occupancy sensor into the new seat (having to unpick the seat cover) and then wire it in to the airbag connector. - When I did this job I thought it was just going to be a simple swap over - how wrong I was! Best of Luck with it mate!

[@josephsabbah4754]

MrScififan thankyou very much, im crossing my fingers its only this! if the passenger seat feel weight it will the seatbelt tone will chime. I simply have to remove my oem headrest + the wire in the seat then swap it completely in the sport seat? its only that very thin wire connected to the white plug underneath the seat? No extra modules or so had to be swapped for this issue to be fixed? Is it possible both fault symbols ( airbag/ seatbelt) are caused because the head rest or simply not connected? Thankyou so much!!!

[@josephsabbah4754]

I had 2 airbags code with the carly and they were 0093AF and. 0093AE ( headrest left/right) I really hope swapping my original active headrest from my 2011 into those 2007 sport seats will solve the issues once the codes are clear!

[@josephsabbah4754]

MrScififan i completed the active head rest swap ( from my 328 2011 on my new 335 seats 2007) the airbag light and belt is still there because it was stored in the computer will i be good after clearing the codes? its very frustrating mate! Your video was so helpful ! I managed to break 2 clips holding that plastic cover

[@ThePetrolMan]

Hi MrScififan. I've just got to the same place as you have, having just swapped my headrests over!!! I now "only" have code 9400 - Incorrect passenger seat occupancy sensor. I am going to remove my old sensor, and fit it into the new seat - but a question! - I assume that the pre-LCI seat multiplug (in the seat I have just fitted to my LCi car) will have the occupancy sensor wires in different positions. Is it a matter of fitting the old sensor back in? If so, is that plug and play once fitted? If not, do you know what wires need changing in the pre LCi seat multi-plug to work with the LCi car loom? (Silly question perhaps but I assume you cant leave the pre-LCi seat sensor and just change the wire positions to match the car loom, to save stripping the seats down?)

[@MrScififan]

Hello mate, nice one! Yeah so I had the same problem you have now. What I did was remove the occupancy sensor from my old seats (LCi I believe) and fit the sensor to my pre-LCi seats (Nice leather ones) which shared the same plug. It was a massive hassle as I had to unpick all of the little hooks which fasten the seat fabric, but got there in the end. Did the same on the Leather seats and slotted in the occupancy sensor, wired it all through and good to go. I occasionally now get the passenger seatbelt warning when someone is sitting in the passenger seat but it's not all the time and I can live with it, main thing is all the error codes go away and I pass the MOT lol...

[@MrScififan]

Ah sorry! I just read your question again (properly this time!) So yes I had to reuse the plug and I had to remove the pins in the plug where the old occupancy sensor was wired, I then slotted in the pins into the same places for the new occupancy sensor - they went in the same positions from what I can remember but yes I remember unpicking some pins from the standard plug

[@slotmaniala6545]

The question is how do you reset it ? Will a resistance do the trick?

[@MrScififan]

It's easy enough to clear the errors using an OBD tool. If you wanted to eliminate the active headrests completely you could put a resistor in to fool the ECU - personally I didn't want to do that and still wanted them to function if they ever needed to

[@KevinEscobarCo]

how do you remove the actual cover? do you just put a flathead in the wedge and pry?

[@MrScififan]

The two wedged bits underneath are held in place by little plastic clips that have to be released. The best way is to get a flathead and release the clips from inside the cover, starting at one of the edges. Once you've released one of the clips the rest is easy.

[@KevinEscobarCo]

thank you so damn much!