2007-2009 Front Seats in a 2013?

[91RS]

I’m trying to find out if anyone has put front seats from a 2007-2009 into a 2013? These would be the heated ventilated seats from an Escalade. The biggest issue, obviously, is the airbags but I don’t see why the seat cushion can’t be cut to fit around them since the later seat cushion is, essentially. I looked at the main seat connector end views and the only major difference I’m seeing is the passenger seat has a “passenger seat position signal” that a 2008 doesn’t have. I have verified yet but I’m assuming it’s just a sensor on the seat rail like the driver side has to determine how far away the seat is from the airbag. Both of those issues should be easy to handle. The only potential issue I see is a communication issue with the memory seat module but being that these are Class 2, which is more archaic, I think that’ll be fine but figured I’d ask if anyone has done this before. The 2007-2009 seats use completely different seat blowers that actually heat and cool the air and doesn’t have heater elements so using the wiring and seat module from the 2013 seats isn’t an option.

Now for those that will ask, the reasoning: the 2010-2013/14 seats are very uncomfortable to me. The seat cushions are super squishy and very unsupportive. My tail bone was sore and my back hurts after a 6 hour drive, which doesn’t happen on the much firmer and more supportive cushions in my 2008. My seat track also has for forward/aft play in it if it isn’t all the way back so I can out that money toward two used seats and then swap over my new trim and covers. And, for the record, I have replaced the seat cushions in my 2013 with new OEM and I honestly think it made it feel worse.

 

[petethepug]

Sounds like fun. Having gone through my non airbag seats in my VW made by Recaro that were generic seats then sourcing, repairing, re-padding, reupholstering and adding new seat heating elements was worth it. Time consuming, but worth it.

I’d go all in. Purchase a pass
07-10 seat and a pass 11-14 seat. Might sound redundant but it means your current p/s seat won’t have be a guinea pig for project. You’ll literally want the seats side by side for comparison and potential mods that might be needed.

Had to buy a 3rd electrically adjustable, heated, leather Recaro from Austria just to get the OEM leather covers. I needed repair parts that were no longer made so that 3rd seat was my replacement for the existing seat.

When it was all said and done the individual left over Recaro seat parts, old cloth upholstery and Orig seats to the car were sold off. They covered $1.2k worth of the $2.5k total cost of the project.

You’ll want to be able to keep both seats on the bench so you can have a test harness from the truck over to the test seats. When you’re done for the day, unplug it and the truck is back to status quo. If you find success, start on the d/s seat and sell off the left overs to recoup your costs.

Contact White Automotive to see if he can jumpstart things for you by cloning your BCM and adding the option codes for the 07-10 hvac seats in another BCM for you. There’s another company that cloned a BCM on the CF for a replacement for about $110 if White doesn’t work out.

Uncharted territory, but fun stuff. I didn’t understand ANY of it 3 years ago so I just made a swap to a different year truck.

 

[91RS]

Since all the wiring in the main seat connectors is in the same spots and the only difference is the addition of a wire for a seat track position sensor (which is an unused terminal on the 08), I really feel like this should work. No programming should be needed, all the functions for the seats are in two modules under each seat. I didn’t really think about it yesterday but I forgot that I have 12-14 door modules in my 2008 to add the factory express up/down windows and a cluster from a 2010 to add all the additional DIC info a 2008 didn’t come with and everything works fine. These are really the last trucks you can do this type of stuff with, all the newer trucks with everything on LAN, LIN bus, etc. wouldn’t work for sure.

I’ll be taking apart my factory seats anyway because I need my new Platinum covers (replaced within the last year), all the trim pieces I replaced, and I’ll have to swap the DVD headrests. If I don’t decide to keep what’ll be left of my factory seats, I should be able to make good money back selling off the new seat heater elements I replaced, both driver seat cushions, and the lumbar support I replaced in the last 6 months to a year that are all discontinued now.

I think the biggest thing will be finding a good set of donor seats. All the OEM cushions for the 07-09 seats are discontinued. I have another new bottom cushion for the driver seat I bought as a spare for my 08 that I can use but I need the passenger seat cushions to be usable, the seat tracks, and the lumbar supports (pretty sure the 07-09 lumbar is still available but not cheap). If the driver seat track is good, this will essentially be a nearly free modification because I was planning to buy a new seat track at some point this year since this one has movement in it.