The saga of the seat.

[dmaisenh]

When I bought my 1999 528iT about 2 years ago the driver’s seat was in poor shape. The bolster was worn thru and there was cracking and tears in the seat back. I ignored it for a long time, and it didn’t magically fix itself.


I had been on the lookout for a good replacement seat but hadn’t found one. I did find one for the passenger’s side even though it wasn’t in near as bad a shape, so I replaced that seat.


I recently discovered how easily the seat back can be separated from the seat base, in my case just two bolts and the wiring harness.


In one of my forays to the junk yard I found a seat back in a 1998 528i that was in great shape. After removing the rear cover, I discovered that the retention method was different. Two levers with green caps. After a little head scratching, I found that if you remove the green caps and rotate them 180 degrees and reinstall them you can push down on the lever and in on the green cap, the green cap holds the lever in the disengaged position allowing you to pull up on the seat back and remove it. The stubs that stick up are the same between the 1998 and 1999.


Once I got home, I discovered that the entire seat back was different. The head rest motor was different and there was an additional metal plate that I think has something to do with lumbar support. Since I still had the passenger seat I had removed I pulled the back off and set about replacing the leather seat cover since the new seat back was in better shape. There are some differences but nothing that was deal breaker. After doing the upholstery work and installing the seat back into the car I moved to the wiring harness, this is when I found out that the seat back heater plug was different. Sigh. You can mod the black plug from seat to make it work with the blue plug in the harness, but I am worried about why it is different. If there wasn’t a difference, there wouldn’t be a difference and I don’t want to burn the car down so for right now it is unplugged.


After it was all connected but before I put the back shell on, I tested everything and found that the head rest motor wasn’t working. I swapped it with the one from the old seat back.


I cleaned the entire seat and used leather conditioner on it, and I love the feel of sliding into the seat. Now the seat base looks shabby. My ultimate fix is finding a set of sport seats in Sand but ones in good shape seem to be as rare as hens’ teeth.

[AutoRotate]

Good work. I found a set of e46 manual sport seats the last time I went to the pick a part, but I don't know if I could get them to fit an e39.

[dohalloran]

I have a pair of sand beige sport seats in pretty good shape that I can't see myself ever using again. I'm in Canada, just outside of Toronto, Ontario. Bit of a hike, but if I drove down to Bob's BMW in Jessup . . .
I swapped out my seats for a set of black sport seats and black door cards. Problem is, I may never find a rear seat in black since I have a wagon. No rush there, as they're always folded down anyway.

[dmaisenh]

I have a pair of sand beige sport seats in pretty good shape that I can't see myself ever using again. I'm in Canada, just outside of Toronto, Ontario. Bit of a hike, but if I drove down to Bob's BMW in Jessup . . .
I swapped out my seats for a set of black sport seats and black door cards. Problem is, I may never find a rear seat in black since I have a wagon. No rush there, as they're always folded down anyway.

Well, if you are ever down my way...
Wagons pop up every now and then here, I get alerts when they hit any of the local yards. I keep a eye out for a black one. There was one awhile ago, I took the rear load area since having a light color in a part of the car where I might haul stuff didn't make sense to me.