Anyone upgraded from cloth to leather interior?

**Darren C** · 25-11-2015,02:51 PM

Hi Guy's,
I've been a while away from the forum having sold my B7 A4 nearly 3 years ago (missed it terribly) but the good news is I collected my 2008 B8 Avant last weekend!

It's an SE spec with non electric cloth interior (but I got it at a good price) and the first thing I've done is purchased a full leather interior for it. Seats, door cards, arm rest, rear arch liners....absolutely all the bits that are leather.

My question is this...

Has anyone retrofitted a leather interior with electric front seats to a cloth non electric seat interior B8? and if so is it straight forward or do I need a diagnostic tool to "tell the car" anything? Occupancy sensors in seats? Wiring loom to power seats? etc.

Over to you experts.

Cheers in advance.

**Darren C** · 01-12-2015,10:54 PM

As no one has replied with any advice, I thought I’d post a couple of pictures to gee things along.

These arrived today from Eastern Germany….

The plan is to fit them to my car….

Any advice on how to wire the seats?
Can the door panels be changed (window & lock buttons etc) disconnected and reconnected without needing to plug into a laptop to get them working again?

Thanks in advance.

**Scott K** · 03-12-2015,09:42 AM

The interior looks mint. Pretty sure the door cards are plug and play. The existing seats will have a sensor for the seat belts but don't know about the electric adjustment.

**Scott K** · 03-12-2015,09:49 AM

http://www.audienthusiasts.com/index.html

This is a great site for mods as well. It's American but the guy is really keen and does great work.

**Darren C** · 03-12-2015,11:35 AM

Thanks Guy’s,
Over the last few evenings I’ve been searching the web for advice. Not much out there!
From what I’ve read you need to swap out the seat modules from the old seats to the new (these are coded to the car and the seats won’t work if simply plugged in to the “wrong” car) There is also some airbag module (this is the bit that worries me) that needs swapping over.
I haven’t had chance to start yet as I work long hours and the car sits outside so it’s a dry weekend job only.
Not sure about the electric motors? Or how and where you connect them if the cars doesn’t have electric seats from new?
From what I’ve read on some American sites, if you don’t swap over the modules then it throws up airbag lights and can lock on the handbrake!!! It will also be interesting to see how I go from a LHD seat set in a RHD car as there’s something that designates this in the seat? I hope its in my old modules!
One things for certain, it will be quite a task/challenge as I have a world of spanners, experience and tools but NO facility to plug anything into the car to see or reset anything (I’m a proper old school engineer, technophobe and dinosaur who asks my son to program my VHS video recorder, I'm not joking I don't even own a DVD player or digital TV yet)

**b206** · 03-12-2015,12:04 PM

Before you start buy a VCDS cable or find someone with a cable who will help you during the swap. You don't want to swap the interiors to be then left with an expensive paperweight!

When I had a B7 I looked into swapping the interiors - quite a few people tried but gave up on the electrics. The B8 will be even harder with curtain airbags etc. At least with a VCDS cable you will be able to see if the airbags are throwing any errors.

**Darren C** · 03-12-2015,12:31 PM

ok, without sounding too scary...What is a VCDS cable, what does it do? Where do I get one and is this all I need or do I need to buy a computer?

**Scott K** · 03-12-2015,12:50 PM

Originally Posted by Darren C

ok, without sounding too scary...What is a VCDS cable, what does it do? Where do I get one and is this all I need or do I need to buy a computer?

Find someone to do it for you. If you need a laptop and cable you are looking at quite a lot of money. The cable is about £290. There is a VCDS users map on the site so you can message someone who is close to you

**Kar Krazy** · 03-12-2015,01:06 PM

Your car looks great - what colour is it? And you've chosen leather that matches really well.

There is a downside to leather seats. They can be very cold in winter and very hot in summer. Heated seats help with the cold problem, of course - but you will also need the switches on the dash. Hot leather seats need a different solution - get some cloth between seat and skin. Cloth seats score a lot of points here!

Then there is another problem. You get 95% through the conversion and hit a massive snag, your car is undriveable and unsaleable, your missus starts saying "I told you so" and you have a nervous breakdown...

**Darren C** · 03-12-2015,01:14 PM

oh. Cant I just swap all the parts over, unbolt the handbrake motors off the calipers (if they throw a hissy fit) and drive it down to a local garage to plug in and reset the computer?
I knew buying a modern car was a mistake. I have 11 cars, several over 80 years old and make of wood and my most newest is 1981, I hate that fact it has fuel injection which is a right royal pain in the ar*e, much prefer carburettors. I'm beginning to dislike the stupid electronic complexity of this B8 and I've only had it a week, for heavens sake its only a seat I want to swap.