So, Tesla is finally offering retrofits of the "next-gen" seats for any Model S. I didn't see anything about this posted anywhere, so, here it is.
The seats were one of the things my wife loves about my car (P85D) vs hers (P85). So, went ahead and inquired about it not long ago.
Got a quote for the parts and labor on the 21st. Pulled the trigger on the 22nd. Parts came in to the service center in Charlotte, NC on the 29th. My install appointment was this morning.
And here is the result:
A P85 with VIN P28xxx with next-gen seats.
Total damages: $6,366.41 (includes $423.27 in sales tax). Whole process took about an hour. Kudos to the Charlotte service team!
They're the same seats that are in my P85D. Much more comfortable than the removed "Performance Leather" ones. They lack the red piping that the old ones had, but, not a huge deal to me or my wife. To note, the rear seats don't appear to be able to be retrofitted with the next-gen version for whatever reason.
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Since I bought the new seats outright (there is no core credit for returned seats) I figured I would make a point keep them instead of just letting Tesla have them. Since I'm paying full price for the new seats I might as well do something with the old ones. If anyone actually *needs* a set, let me know before I start working on my next project (see below) and we can probably work something out. They weigh something like 50-60 lbs each. So, they got stuffed in the trunk for me to take home. They fit pretty snug, but I probably could have done a better Tetris job than the techs did I think.
Here are the bottoms of them. Driver seat is on the left and includes the memory module. Passenger seat is on the right and is "dumb" (just power through switches to the motors). Both have an occupancy sensor. The driver side one is just a binary switch, the passenger one is more complex and is a liquid bladder of some kind feeding into a pressure sensor, presumably for detecting the weight of the passenger for determining air bag use.
Here they are back to back laying in my basement.
I tinkered with them a bit. I was able to get the passenger seat functions full operational just by applying 14V to the right wires (thicker red and black ones on the harness...). So that's great.
The driver seat doesn't seem to work the same. The lumbar works when power is given, but none of the other functions work. Powering the main power connection and the power to the "memory seat module" doesn't help either. (A relay clicks twice when power is applied, still no response to the switches). According to wiring diagrams the driver seat memory module has CAN bus communication with the center display... and I'm guessing it will refuse to work without some kind of command or something. I'll have to investigate further later unless anyone has any ideas.
The motors appear the be all the same, just the wiring of the switches on the driver seat go through the memory module. I suppose if all else fails I could just bypass the memory module and use the passenger seat as a rewire template.
My plan is to use them in my upcoming electric go-cart project... ... I don't think seat position memory is going to be high on the list of things to do for that project, but it would be cool to have it working without too much modification.
Pretty cool though.
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Edit: At some point my copyrighted images were illegally copied from my external hosting and re-hosted directly by TMC. TMC was never given permission to host and distribute my copyrighted images. I've corrected the image references. If my images are appropriated again without my permission I will be forced to take legal action.
The seats were one of the things my wife loves about my car (P85D) vs hers (P85). So, went ahead and inquired about it not long ago.
Got a quote for the parts and labor on the 21st. Pulled the trigger on the 22nd. Parts came in to the service center in Charlotte, NC on the 29th. My install appointment was this morning.
And here is the result:
A P85 with VIN P28xxx with next-gen seats.
Total damages: $6,366.41 (includes $423.27 in sales tax). Whole process took about an hour. Kudos to the Charlotte service team!
They're the same seats that are in my P85D. Much more comfortable than the removed "Performance Leather" ones. They lack the red piping that the old ones had, but, not a huge deal to me or my wife. To note, the rear seats don't appear to be able to be retrofitted with the next-gen version for whatever reason.
----------------
Since I bought the new seats outright (there is no core credit for returned seats) I figured I would make a point keep them instead of just letting Tesla have them. Since I'm paying full price for the new seats I might as well do something with the old ones. If anyone actually *needs* a set, let me know before I start working on my next project (see below) and we can probably work something out. They weigh something like 50-60 lbs each. So, they got stuffed in the trunk for me to take home.
They fit pretty snug, but I probably could have done a better Tetris job than the techs did I think.
Here are the bottoms of them. Driver seat is on the left and includes the memory module. Passenger seat is on the right and is "dumb" (just power through switches to the motors). Both have an occupancy sensor. The driver side one is just a binary switch, the passenger one is more complex and is a liquid bladder of some kind feeding into a pressure sensor, presumably for detecting the weight of the passenger for determining air bag use.
Here they are back to back laying in my basement.
I tinkered with them a bit. I was able to get the passenger seat functions full operational just by applying 14V to the right wires (thicker red and black ones on the harness...). So that's great.
The driver seat doesn't seem to work the same. The lumbar works when power is given, but none of the other functions work. Powering the main power connection and the power to the "memory seat module" doesn't help either. (A relay clicks twice when power is applied, still no response to the switches). According to wiring diagrams the driver seat memory module has CAN bus communication with the center display... and I'm guessing it will refuse to work without some kind of command or something.
I'll have to investigate further later unless anyone has any ideas.The motors appear the be all the same, just the wiring of the switches on the driver seat go through the memory module. I suppose if all else fails I could just bypass the memory module and use the passenger seat as a rewire template.
My plan is to use them in my upcoming electric go-cart project...
... I don't think seat position memory is going to be high on the list of things to do for that project, but it would be cool to have it working without too much modification.Pretty cool though.
---
Edit: At some point my copyrighted images were illegally copied from my external hosting and re-hosted directly by TMC. TMC was never given permission to host and distribute my copyrighted images. I've corrected the image references. If my images are appropriated again without my permission I will be forced to take legal action.
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