vince in philly

Hi - I'm the new owner of a lightly used 2006 530xi sports wagon. This is my first BMW. I really like the car so far, but would like to upgrade to seats with the adjustable thigh support. As far as I can tell, my car has the premium package and the cold weather package, so I have 10-way power front seats with 3-stage heating. I'd like to install either sport seats or comfort seats - I don't car which, I just want the adjustable thigh support.

Can I install either sport seats or comfort seats from any E60 without any wiring or coding changes?

methodsound

I believe the E60 only has 3 basic seat options standard/sport/comfort (not including manual / electric variations). There is very little info available for seat retrofitting, I have searched. I will do my best to give you some general guidance based on my experience.
Just to be safe and keep it simple try to find a set of sport or comfort seats from a car with build date 09/2005 and newer and also avoid getting the active backrest option (4MF available on the comfort seat).
For my 01/04 I bought a set of comfort seats with active backrest from a 2006 M5. It was a bit of a risk because the seats I bought came from a car with a different body computer, safety and gateway module (SGM) is superseded in 09/05 to the (KGM). Also, for the active backrest option, programming as well as a new center console switch (SZM) is required.

Incidentally the seats I bought for my car had broken thigh bolsters and I had to swap parts from my sport seats for the repair.

vince in philly

Thanks for the feedback. I've been researching this since I posted the question and had come to the conclusion that since I have power heated seats with memory I should be okay to swap in any E60 sport or comfort seats. Then I learned that BMW introduced active headrests in the 2009 model year and figured that would complicate things since it somehow ties into the airbag system I think. I wasn't even aware of active seat backs, so thanks for raising that as a potential complication. I have much to learn...

methodsound

I must say the sport seat is nothing special compared to the comfort seats I bought. If you can find a set of those I think you will like them better.