C5 X7 Leather Seats retrofit

[JohnnyUndercover]

Hello guys, I've recently purchased a C5 X7 2009 2.0 HDi 103kw that was in really bad shape (not taken care of by the last owner). Dents and scratches all over the car, pieces missing and things not working. I'm slowly turning the car around and it's coming out great IMO. Anyway, the next step I was looking forward to is to try and fit the half leather seats in it (it has the standard isofix seats). I also have a donor C5 with the half leather seats, same build year, 2009, with a 2.7 HDi engine and ambient lightning. I was looking through some older posts about retrofitting and didn't want to jump in there with questions so I opened my own thread.

I've located the seat memory module underneath the drivers door card. I want to swap the door cards too because they have the ambient lights and black trims instead of the silver ones on my car. I am going to swap the driver door wiring loom with the one from the donor car because of the missing connectors for the lights and seat module. One thing I've noticed was that the wiring door connector on the donor has 3 pins LESS than mine (with manuals seats and no ambient lights). I'm attaching the pictures bellow.

This is from my car:


This is from the donor car (with electric seats)


So I do not know what to do about it now. I did not check (yet) my connectors underneath the seats to see what's different there. I'd like to make everything work as it does from factory. I've red somewhere that the passenger rear view mirror's memory function in reverse is controlled by the seat module too. Does anyone know if it has to be activated over DiagBox or just put together and it should work as is?

Here are the VIN numbers from both cars:
My car: VF7**************[VIN obfuscated, can be read by forum staff]
Donor car: VF7**************[VIN obfuscated, can be read by forum staff]

Any help and/or suggestion is appreciated!

[Jay-Bruce]

I'm mainly posting to say the Xantia in your profile pic looks cool, loving the stance on those wheels - any chance of more pictures of it?

I can't provide much help with the electrics, but if you're willing to take a bit of a deeper dive into this, I'd suggest transferring the electrics from one set of seats to the other, or even just swap the covers from one set of seats to the other. This would totally side step any electrical problems / incompatibilities. The most infuriating part of doing any upholstery stuff like that is dealing with the aptly named hog rings, which are a pig to undo. My recommendation is to get a set of compound snips, like mini bolt cutters:

~£12.50 on eBay https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/255873321116

Use them to cut the old hog rings off, remove the covers, and use a hog ring kit which will come with the pliers/stapler thing and a rake of hogrings, then use the new hog rings for refitting the covers. The tool is like the illegitimate lovechild of a pare of pliers and a stapler, but these pictures explains it well:


You'll get a kit for under twenty bucks on eBay, for example https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/185640268123 which can come with 100 hog rings for £15 or 400 hog rings for £19

If you're really wanting to go with making the electrics work, if you go to the top left corner of the page, there is a donations link, donate £10 (or equivalent in your currency) your username will turn green and you'll be able to ask some of the grown ups to access the PSA/stellantis online resource for wiring info. The reason for this service being for donors only is it's expensive to subscribe to the PSA online information system, but Marc (giveMeABreak) virtually lives on here, and replies to requests for that sort of information pretty quickly.

[JohnnyUndercover]

Thanks for the reply, and for the interest in my car. I've reached a small setback as the donor C5 didn't come with the passenger door (LHD) so I do not have the wiring loom of that door. I do however have the memory module for the seats and mirrors. When I get more time I will dive into the wiring loom of the seats on the donor to try and figure out how it works.

Here are a couple of pics of my Xantia on my Google Photos since you asked: https://photos.app.goo.gl/8FsnU39GwjzFnT397

[Jay-Bruce]

Loving the fact that it's an activa, that makes it even cooler.