front driver seat swap
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Same Question
Has anyone done this swap. If so are there any modules that are needed and I'm assuming dealer activation is required?
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If you want a final and correct answer, P.M. steffen.m , he will know for sure.
You don't need any modules for the 8-way power seat with lumbar. If you buy a power seat with the wiring harness then you must route a wire from pin 21 of the 26-way white connector C376 to the pin 32 of the 40-way gray connector C6 at the TIPM in the engine compartment.
I'm trying this myself as well. I've got a 2011 GC Mainstreet with a manual seat. Long story short, it worked ok, but now my airbag light is on. Any ideas?
Here's more details on what the process and what I found for anybody looking to do the same:
Step 1) I checked the wiring and I had 11 wires total coming from the van floor, the 4 in the yellow plug and the other 7 in the larger white 24 pin connector. On the manual seat, there are only 6 wires, so 1 of the wires provided by the van is unused by the manual seat. It is a larger gauge red wire that comes into I believe pin 21 as steffen.m mentioned. So I believe I have unused power coming to the seat. Checked the large gauge red and black wires with multimeter and confirmed they are hot.
Step 2) Went to local salvage yard to look at 2 seat options. First was a 2012 GC. The seat had been out in the weather (probably for years) and looked nasty, but I checked the wiring in the floor of that van and it matched exactly the 11 wires in my van. This confirms that I think the wiring in my van is what I need. Second option was in a 2011 T&C. The wiring in the floor of the van has the 24 pin connector totally full, which I believe support other features like the heated seats, etc. This seat was in good condition and the wiring in the 24 pin connector on the seat side had 8 wires, the 7 my van has and one more larger orange/red wire in pin 15 I think. I bought this seat.
Step 3) Since I don't have the tools to jack the van up and pull the seat out, nor the T50 Torx bit needed to remove the seatbelt, I paid my mechanic to swap them out for me. He called with good news. The seat was plug and play and all power functions (forward, back, up, down, recline, and power lumbar) work great.
Now to the bad news, the airbag light is on now after the swap. The light has been on once before with the manual seat when I first bought the van and the local Dodge dealer was able to clear it by messing with seatbelt sensor wiring under the driver's seat. So, I'm hoping maybe that same connection is just loose again if my mechanic wasn't careful to be sure it was super tight. I'll try that tonight. I've also heard it's possible that the occupant sensors in the seat are tied to the VIN number of the van it was in. Does anyone know if that is the case? And if so, I assume I will have to pay to have a dealer update the computer? I'll pull the negative battery cable for a while tonight and hook it back up just in case a reset of the system that way might re-learn the new seat sensor.
I'll update when I get it taken care of.
Here's more details on what the process and what I found for anybody looking to do the same:
Step 1) I checked the wiring and I had 11 wires total coming from the van floor, the 4 in the yellow plug and the other 7 in the larger white 24 pin connector. On the manual seat, there are only 6 wires, so 1 of the wires provided by the van is unused by the manual seat. It is a larger gauge red wire that comes into I believe pin 21 as steffen.m mentioned. So I believe I have unused power coming to the seat. Checked the large gauge red and black wires with multimeter and confirmed they are hot.
Step 2) Went to local salvage yard to look at 2 seat options. First was a 2012 GC. The seat had been out in the weather (probably for years) and looked nasty, but I checked the wiring in the floor of that van and it matched exactly the 11 wires in my van. This confirms that I think the wiring in my van is what I need. Second option was in a 2011 T&C. The wiring in the floor of the van has the 24 pin connector totally full, which I believe support other features like the heated seats, etc. This seat was in good condition and the wiring in the 24 pin connector on the seat side had 8 wires, the 7 my van has and one more larger orange/red wire in pin 15 I think. I bought this seat.
Step 3) Since I don't have the tools to jack the van up and pull the seat out, nor the T50 Torx bit needed to remove the seatbelt, I paid my mechanic to swap them out for me. He called with good news. The seat was plug and play and all power functions (forward, back, up, down, recline, and power lumbar) work great.
Now to the bad news, the airbag light is on now after the swap. The light has been on once before with the manual seat when I first bought the van and the local Dodge dealer was able to clear it by messing with seatbelt sensor wiring under the driver's seat. So, I'm hoping maybe that same connection is just loose again if my mechanic wasn't careful to be sure it was super tight. I'll try that tonight. I've also heard it's possible that the occupant sensors in the seat are tied to the VIN number of the van it was in. Does anyone know if that is the case? And if so, I assume I will have to pay to have a dealer update the computer? I'll pull the negative battery cable for a while tonight and hook it back up just in case a reset of the system that way might re-learn the new seat sensor.
I'll update when I get it taken care of.
You might look at this website http://www.bbbind.com/free_tsb.html to see if you can find a wiring diagram that might help
What does TIPM stand for?
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Your airbag problem:
No programming is necessary. You must find a problem with one of the plugs on your seat. Airbag light comes often from the connector for the sealtbelt. Check this yellow connector. The driver seat does'nt have an occupant sensor. The passenger seat has an occupant sensor, but has only the info "Set" in the TIPM.
Thanks for the response. That makes sense. No need to check if there is a driver
I will double check all of the connectors as best I can and hopefully be able to straighten it out.
Can anybody tell me how many possible plugs/connections there are in the seat that could be my problem? I see the yellow one right underneath next to the main power plug and another yellow one from the back underside of the seat. Are there others? Is there possibly something to do with the active headrest as well? I'm not much of an electrician or anything, but is there a way to test the plugs with a multi meter to see if I can tell where the issue might be?
So I dropped the van off at our local Dodge dealer today. They called me back after several hours and said they hadn't found the problem yet. They asked me to bring the old seat back over to them because that might help them troubleshoot the issue? Would that really be helpful? It would seem like they could follow a wiring diagram and check for the proper voltage/resistance at each wire/connector and determine where the issue was. How many hours of labor is reasonable for them to charge to troubleshoot this?
Dealer finally determined that the belt buckle in the new seat was defective. When they plugged the belt buckle from the old seat in that cleared the airbag error code. They told me that there was something different about the belt bucket and sensor for the power seat vs. the old manual seat so they couldn't just swap them out. They ordered a brand new one, for $200 which was more than I paid for the whole power seat. Once, they had that installed air bag light is off and we've been enjoying the power seat with no issues for a couple weeks now. Had that buckle not been defective, this switch truly would have been plug and play without needing any dealer intervention. Turned out to be a pain for a couple weeks and more expensive than I thought going in, but still worth it for the years we plan on keeping this van.
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Umm.. Hmm. Not seeing it. Everyone I talked to whether it's someone from Dodge or an automotive repair shop, it's like talking to pieces of wood. This is the only forum that has members that seems to have done it. And I'm glad to have found it. I mean once I basically get the seat set where I'm comfortable with lumbar support, I can unhook the wire. So to speak.
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