[Astray]

Hello everyone,

So my new mazda 2014 sedan came with cloth seats and I was very heavily considering replacing the seats with some of the OEM leather seats. My only problem with this is the driver seat is a power bucket seat while my current seat is just a manual bucket seat. Has anyone done this swap before? Is it something easy to do or am I gonna be fighting a lot to get the power seat properly installed by doing custom wiring and such? Any information on this would be very helpful!

Thank you!

 

[arathol]

Poke around under the seat and carpeting a bit. See if the connections for the power seats are hidden under there somewhere. They may be as the same wiring harnesses can be used in different models.

 

[Astray]

How would I identify those connections though? Even if they are there I've never seen them and wouldn't be able to tell unfortunately without some sort of reference.

 

[arathol]

Well there aren't too many other things that would have any sort of electrical connections under there so...........:dunno:

If there are connectors, you would need to make sure they are the same ones as on any powered seat you might have, hopefully before you buy it.
So, if you have a seat in mind, try to get a look at whats on the seat and go from there.

 

[hansboomer]

If you look under your seat, you'll probably find at least one unused electrical connectors there. If at least one of the connectors are always hot, there's a pretty good chance the seats will work.
You might be able to add switches for the seat heaters too, but you might need a software update to make it work because the switches and heaters are on the canbus.
The worst case is that you need a software upgrade to make the motors that move seat work. I suspect that you will not need to do that, but I don't know how to prove that.

h

 

[Astray]

Providing an update:

So I managed to get a picture of the driver seat wiring harness of a 2014 Mazda 3s Grand Touring and I compared to the wiring harness of my vehicle (2014 i Touring). There was absolutely no difference in the number of wires coming into the connector (total of 9). As a result I went and made the purchase as the Mazda 3s Grand Touring (VIN: JM1BM1W35E1195969) seats were available for $540 from LKQ on ebay. I'm hoping that I'll be able to buy the heated leather seat switch and install it in place of the standard passenger airbag indicator just above the climate control and then have very nice heated leather seats as well as power driver seat for what I think is a very fair cost. The order hasn't gone through yet, so I'd love to hear some thoughts from everyone in case someone realizes something I might not be thinking about.

 

[Astray]

The wires were all the same color and in the same locations as well. For some reason this forum won't let me share pictures because of some dumb post count BS so here's some links to the them:

imgur dot com/KA0cqOP

imgur dot com/TOJ9qiA

 

[Astray]

imgur dot com/KA0cqOP

imgur dot com/TOJ9qiA

Top is 2014 i Touring
Bottom is 2014 s Grand Touring

 

[Road Trip]

For some reason this forum won't let me share pictures because of some dumb post count BS so here's some links to the them:

There is absolutely nothing dumb nor BS about requiring a minimum post count before posting pics. The reason is to avoid a forum totally filled with spam.

I am a member of a large car forum and before that forum instituted a minimum post count before pictures could be posted, that forum was swamped with spam (many multiple times daily), with the result that some members properly posted that unless the spam were eliminated, they were leaving the forum.

Forum Administration immediately instituted a minimum post count before pics -- and now that major forum get less than one spam per week.

When member post a total of 15 times, this forum allows picture for all.

 

[Astray]

Not to get too off topic, but there are other ways to prevent spam other than requiring such high post counts before posting in my opinion. 15 posts is too high a minimum and more negatively effects new members than it helps the forum as a whole. I would say 5 posts is reasonable, but really I doubt this forum grows so quickly that an administrator or moderator couldn't just enable those privileges for a new user upon request after making some sort of introduction post. Not being able to add links is especially frustrating.

 

[GerryB]

Blame the bots, not the forum.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk

 

[Astray]

Blame the bots, not the forum.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk

Fair enough, can we get back to the topic at hand? I'm hoping I haven't overlooked something dumb in my purchase and I'd like to cancel it before they ship if that's the case lol. It's a pretty safe bet that the seat memory is connected in the actual seat and not in the car's computer right? Otherwise I'd have to do some sort of programming to make the seat work which is not something I'm capable of.

 

[Astray]

So I went ahead with the install and I'm happy to report that everything is plug and play. Mazda even included the fuses already in the driver's side interior fuse panel. I was able to swap out the seats and the Indicator Unit just by swapping the new ones for the old and now have a power driver seat as well as the heated seat functions. I will do a write up using the service manual later at some point, but I referenced it for everything I did. By far the most difficult part was the tear down of the rear, center, and front console to get access to the climate control + indicator unit so I could swap it out. There is no easy way around this unfortunately, you have to take out the front console before going after the indicator unit. Figuring out how the shifter knob came out took way too long and a spring inside of it popped out that took me quite awhile to figure out how it was in there in the first place since it wasn't something I was supposed to have touched. Make sure to unplug the negative terminal of the battery before doing anything and you won't have any dash lights come on at all.

 

[Jgray-22]

So I went ahead with the install and I'm happy to report that everything is plug and play. Mazda even included the fuses already in the driver's side interior fuse panel. I was able to swap out the seats and the Indicator Unit just by swapping the new ones for the old and now have a power driver seat as well as the heated seat functions. I will do a write up using the service manual later at some point, but I referenced it for everything I did. By far the most difficult part was the tear down of the rear, center, and front console to get access to the climate control + indicator unit so I could swap it out. There is no easy way around this unfortunately, you have to take out the front console before going after the indicator unit. Figuring out how the shifter knob came out took way too long and a spring inside of it popped out that took me quite awhile to figure out how it was in there in the first place since it wasn't something I was supposed to have touched. Make sure to unplug the negative terminal of the battery before doing anything and you won't have any dash lights come on at all.

Astray.. I was wondering how this went. I am getting ready to buy a leather set with power driver and heat on both sides.
for the heater switches, is the wiring in the dash for these already? I guess I am hoping for a good explanation of what is needed and the best process to swap these out.
Thank you!!!

 

[Astray]

Astray.. I was wondering how this went. I am getting ready to buy a leather set with power driver and heat on both sides.
for the heater switches, is the wiring in the dash for these already? I guess I am hoping for a good explanation of what is needed and the best process to swap these out.
Thank you!!!

Sorry it took awhile to reply, but it was literally just plug and play. As long as you can disassemble and swap out the right parts then you don't even need to mess with the fuses. I was shocked at how easy it ended up being for my 2014 models. I would guess the 2015 mazda 3 would be similar but then you start running into different seat harnesses for the 2016 model I think.