In addition to bicycles, I have had a long-term interest in cars and even making mods to them. Its been a long time since I last worked on a car or had a car project, OR desire to do so.
Once you go Porsche 911 (1986 Carrera here), all cars after are just not worth the love. The GTI Autobahn came perfect from the shop new, nothing to add, the seats even perfect. Like the 911, I finally sold it after the kids had no desire for it, my excuse/regret was the lovely Recaro heated seats. BUT I did it, I moved on, with the mission of getting Recaros into my old Tesla Model S.
(Yes, I am a blessed old white man, don't worry my time is short and meaningless as a Gen Xer)
So years after only working on bicycles, I had a car project.
After researching the options, it turns out Tesla actually had a $6000 after sale option providing seat upgrades to the 2014 Model S. These 2015-2016 "Gen 2" or "Next Gen" seats were actually MADE by Recaro for some time, and the design used by later Tesla suppliers. So how do we find these seats in 2022?
Ebay searching for most of 2022 and Craigslist produced few options to match my Tan interior - black would/could maybe work and were far more plentiful. In addition to seats themselves, 4 special adapter wires were needed to manage the 28 wires that needed mapping from the new seats to the older cars.
A search on Co-Part turned up a set of seats not posted on Ebay by "Calimotive Auto Recycling" in Rancho Cordoba California. A month's long back and forth text chain with a Daniel S. at Calimotive ensued. He only wanted $600 for these:
I still needed the harnesses adapters. The main forum on the topic included someone doing the swap WITHOUT the harnesses, but cooler heads prevailed within and documented the needed pieces to make this plug and play.
2x ASY, JUMPER, SIAB-SEAL TO UNSEAL, MDLS? (1116327-00-A)
1x MS SEAT HRN PATCH NONMEM- SEAL TO UNSEAL (1139367-00-A)
1x MS SEAT HRN PATCH MEMORY-SEAL TO UNSEAL (1139366-00-A)
Tesla Service center sort of responded, getting me an invoice but cancelling and rescheduling me over November as parts did not show up. SO I started back on ebay for the the harnesses, and got 3 of the 4 required, Tesla came through with the last in December!
Even though I am in the SF Bay Area, I still needed to actually get to Calimotive, requiring a good chunk of a day. With limited PTO and Calimotive M-F, the magic day was December 23, 2022.
My elder son and I made a day of it, picked up the seats for a very good $, got a tour,
ate a lunch
and got those seats home! Plenty of space in the back of the Model S for these
The result so far is FANTASTIC. The seat works, even the heater, and it fits my body so much better. I am old but not fat enough for the Gen 1 as I suspected.
With this project finished, I am able to finally let the GTI go as my butt is now satisfied ;)
Just a followup after a year, I love these seats - sold the GTI and have not looked back. There is an odd clunk with the seats over some bumps, I should review BUT otherwise the seats make the car.
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