Changing 2nd Row Seats to folders

[MDR SEA]

Not my experience on the 2016 Model X, 6 seat pedestal.
I had the 5 seat middle seat unit.
Surprised that Tesla would use different attachment points.
You might get with a software guru to address the warnings.
Good luck

 

[OK-S]

Slightly different twist on this thread - can one swap the non-folding middle row in an early seven seat MX for ones in a later model that has folding seats? Straight swap?

 

[geordi]

That's what I did - and yes it can be done and the computer CAN be made happy.

 

[OK-S]

Hi Geordi, that’s interesting and reassuring. Can you review precisely what you had to do to make it work? I also have a 2016 7-seater.

 

[geordi]

I bought a set of powered bench (seven seat configuration) with the slide rails that came from a 2020, I have a 2016. Also 7 seat configuration.

I did NOT put the car into any mode when doing the work, I do not have toolbox. What I would suggest is to ensure that the seats are LOCKED / LATCHED and that you have no errors before you attempt this, b/c the computer only seemed to notice the issue after I had swapped them AND had touched the damn button in the back of one. It unlatched, got stuck part way, and then the computer continually was annoying about "unlatched seat" until I was able to get the computer settings changed later.

Physical work: Open the doors and frunk and rear all around, then power off the car. Pull the fireman's loop AND disconnect the 12v.
Go to town unbolting and unplugging. That's in the service manual.
The new bench will not match all the holes, but some of the fitment positions will be fairly obvious. For the others, you CAN drill (I used a short step bit from Harbor Freight) and then tap (metric) for the factory bolts. You will see that there are two raised plates that the chairs sit on. THIS is the only place you can drill, and there's around 1" below of room to work. The floor under that raised plate is the floor of the car, NOT the lid of the battery - so you'd have to be a true gorilla to get to the battery and mess this up. Don't be a gorilla, but anything you do isn't my fault.

Safety tip: Before you install the chairs, open them up and DISCONNECT THE MOTORS. You don't need them! On the two outside seats, unzip the backs and get up to the top corners, and UNPLUG THOSE BUTTONS! You don't need those either! If you don't do this, you can screw up the computer and cause yourself the errors that I had about unlatched seating. VERY annoying.

If you have a friendly service center, you might be able to convince them to change the car's option setting about the type of 2nd row it has. They have to change it on the server TOO, or the car will just lose the setting every time it reboots (which it does right after they make that change apparently) b/c the server side is viewed as the only acceptable version.

 

[OK-S]

I bought a set of powered bench (seven seat configuration) with the slide rails that came from a 2020, I have a 2016. Also 7 seat configuration.

I did NOT put the car into any mode when doing the work, I do not have toolbox. What I would suggest is to ensure that the seats are LOCKED / LATCHED and that you have no errors before you attempt this, b/c the computer only seemed to notice the issue after I had swapped them AND had touched the damn button in the back of one. It unlatched, got stuck part way, and then the computer continually was annoying about "unlatched seat" until I was able to get the computer settings changed later.

Physical work: Open the doors and frunk and rear all around, then power off the car. Pull the fireman's loop AND disconnect the 12v.
Go to town unbolting and unplugging. That's in the service manual.
The new bench will not match all the holes, but some of the fitment positions will be fairly obvious. For the others, you CAN drill (I used a short step bit from Harbor Freight) and then tap (metric) for the factory bolts. You will see that there are two raised plates that the chairs sit on. THIS is the only place you can drill, and there's around 1" below of room to work. The floor under that raised plate is the floor of the car, NOT the lid of the battery - so you'd have to be a true gorilla to get to the battery and mess this up. Don't be a gorilla, but anything you do isn't my fault.

Safety tip: Before you install the chairs, open them up and DISCONNECT THE MOTORS. You don't need them! On the two outside seats, unzip the backs and get up to the top corners, and UNPLUG THOSE BUTTONS! You don't need those either! If you don't do this, you can screw up the computer and cause yourself the errors that I had about unlatched seating. VERY annoying.

If you have a friendly service center, you might be able to convince them to change the car's option setting about the type of 2nd row it has. They have to change it on the server TOO, or the car will just lose the setting every time it reboots (which it does right after they make that change apparently) b/c the server side is viewed as the only acceptable version.

Wow, thank you for that thorough explanation! I'm going to have to take a few deep breaths and see if I want to go as far as drilling new holes as well as consulting with an SC i to see if they will do the SW change because that would be a deal-breaker for my wife and if I sell-on. Once again, thank you for taking the time to spell it out!

 

[geordi]

The main reason for the software change is to keep the computer from freaking out and throwing "seat unlatched" errors if it somehow detects the change - On mine, it did NOT throw any errors until (like a complete idiot) I was looking through the menus and accidentally hit the seat page and touched one of the seat movement buttons. The rear seat promptly unlocked and flopped forward EXACTLY to the 45 degree position that everyone complains about them locking in - and got stuck. This is CLEARLY a software bug, but good luck telling anyone important about that.

Once that had happened, even as I had reset it on the chair... It refused to ever work again, AND every time I drove the car I had a banner alert on the MCU about it that I had to clear.

Once they fixed the options and told the car that it has folding seats, both the seat screen and the errors were gone.

So IF you disconnect the motors in the chairs (IMPORTANT that you do!) then it can't "unlatch" anything on its own, and it may just be OK if you also stay the heck out of that seats menu on the screen. It HAD done a software update before that error and there weren't any issues... But afterwards, the software updates also refused to complete. Again once the option code was changed by the service center, everything works perfectly and the seats are manual fold and slide - which is fine by me, I never carry more than 4 people and hardly ever have the seats unfolded anyway. Usually it is just me and lots of cargo. A portable landfill.