Installing electric seat

[beanie]

Im looking at replacing my drivers seat in my VY ute with an electric one. Does anyone have any info on what is involved in doing this? Any help would be much appreciated

[Calaber]

Hi Beanie

I didn't realise the utes didn't have the electric controls for the driver's seat. Are you talking about the basic four way power seat, or the eight way seat from a Calais/Statesman? The eight way seat has power seat reclining as well as lift and tilt.

The electric lifting and tilting mechanism is a complete unit that bolts onto the seat in place of the standard mounting brackets. You would need to obtain a complete lifting mechanism from the wreckers or a complete drivers seat, plus the wiring loom that connects to the seat, and you would need to work out where the loom connected to the body wiring harness. Your seat should already have some wiring to it for the seat belt tensioner.

Can't help with costs, you would just have to shop around the wreckers. Just make sure you get a seat from a VY and no earlier. The VY's had a substantially altered lifting mechanism and the earlier models might not be as simple to install when it comes to the wiring.

It should be a straight swap over with only the wiring to deal with.

[red_hoon]

any chances on some info. want to put a vy monaro electric seat into a vt berlina.. its got more wires... is their a loom in the car already to plug to ?

[OZ38]

So is what I've just read saying I can't or shouldn't use the electric seat base from a VT model sedan in a base VY model ute due to a difference in wiring ?

Cheers

Deek

[Calaber]

I will attepmpt to answer both the last two posts with this response. Hope it makes sense.

The basic wiring feeds are simply power, earth and the warning light/chime for the seat belt. As utes apparently don't have a power adjustable driver's seat, you will need to install the power wires from the existing termination point (that is, the point within your car where the wiring stops at present) to the seat, along the driver's sill panel).

The problem with using the VT seat base is that it was completely revised by the time the VY was released and the number of alterations you would need to make to make it fit your VY seat is more trouble than it is worth. You would be much better off to use a VY driver's seat in the first place, though it will be more expensive. I used the VT seat because it was easy to get one cheaply ($50), but until I pulled the seat out of my VY, I didn't realise how much was changed between the two models.

In relation to fitting a Monaro seat, I imagine it has all the memory seat wiring loom and module attached. I am in the process at present of trying to install leather Calais trim to my Berlina and the wiring under the drivers seat is a nightmare. I have simply pulled it all out and made up a simpler loom to provide for the power adjustments to be made via the two larger buttons and ignoring the small memory setting buttons. The passenger seat was fine, as it didn't have all the memolry wiring, but at present, the driver's seat is no-go, I suspect because of a faulty switch.

I don't think the VT had memory seats, so the memory module won't work anyway. From an examination of the wiring diagrams, the module connects to the BCM and Calais had a specific Level 3 BCM. That means to fit a VY Monaro seat to a VT would require major rewiring if you wanted the memory functions to operate, but only a basic power feed as described above to enable the driver to adjust the seat manually using the power buttons. Provided you just want to fit the seats striaght in, without worrying about matching the upholstery to the VT, the actual job of swapping seats is straightforward.