Mk7 golf seats into a Mk6

[Rod1609]

To all who are curious about this upgrade.

I recently purchased a full interior set of front and rear seats from a mk7 gtd golf. I like the tartan fabric over my original pretty boring fabric fitted to my 2012 Golf match 1.4 TSI mk 6. I read a few forums that pretty much said the seats were a straight swap. Sort of True for the front seats but NOT true for the rear. The list below notes the differences .

Rear back rests

The pivot points each side of the backrest sections where the seats pivot are located in a different position which stops the seats pivoting freely in my Mk6. - My fix was to strip the foam and fabric from the mk7 back rest subframes and modify the positions to match the dimensions of my Mk6. I made brackets and removed a section of the frame to allow the brackets to be fitted. A pivot pin either bolted to the bracket or a plastic bush was fitted.

The isofix positions are pitched differently to the mk6. Also, the foam shape at the rear of the bench seat section is deeper. I fixed this by trimming the foam on the mk7 seat using an electric carving knife Until I got the seat to fit. I also trimmed the underside of the foam under each of the main seat locations as the foam on the mk7 is much thicker at these points.

The centre seat belt mounting on a mk 7 does not fit into the car body mounting of a mk6. The buckle socket anchor bracket is a different design. I fixed this by swapping out the mk7 seat belt for a mk 6 with the correct lower anchor detail. Easy to do when the foam and fabric has been removed.

The foam shape and wire frame on the bottom bench seat section is very different in that the foam is a deeper section and so the frame is a different shape to match. It means the bench part really does not fit at all. My fix was as described above. I used the seat wire frame from a mk 6 golf to gauge the amount of foam to be trimmed. A few trial fits allowed me to get it pretty much spot on. I ended up clipping the fabric and modified foam from the mk7 seat to the mk6 seat wire frame.

The metal subframe on the mk7 backrests fouled with the car body at the corners closest to the doors when trying to pivot the backrests downwards. I ground a corner section from each of the backrests Just enough to clear the car bodywork.

once all mods were complete....and there were a lot ....I refitted the fabric and foam then fitted the seats. Job done...well...back seats anyway.

Front seats.....almost plug and play.

i had to change the air bag wiring plugs as the mk7 plugs are different. I cut the plugs from my Mk6 seats leaving about 300mm of flex on the plug. I removed the same from the mk7 seats and connected the mk6 plug with lead to the mk7 seats using inline bullet connectors. 3 on each seat. The wiring colours are different by the way so I had to be sure wire colours were connected correctly.

The driver seat has the identical 2 pin plug fitted to the seat belt buckle connector so once the air bag plug had been changed I was able to fit the driver seat. Bolt positions are identical.

The passenger seat on a mk7 also has a different 4 pin plug which connects the belt buckle and seat occupancy sensor under the seat. (Along side the airbag plug socket). I removed the Y shaped wiring loom connected between seat occupancy sensor and belt buckle from my Mk6 and swapped it for the mk7 loom. This results in the 2 pin plug connection I needed. Once this mod was complete I fitted the passenger seat.

At at this point I thought everything would be good. I had no warning lights and air bag circuits are good. I noticed however that after starting the car and connecting drivers seat belt the seat belt warning light for the passenger side stays illuminated. Goes out when you plug the seat belt in. The chime on the seat occupancy circuit also does not seem to work. I have since found out that if the passenger seat is changed you have to carry out a basic setting followed by a seat occupied recognition reset using VCDS. Planning to book it into a local garage for this to take place which I hope will fix the seat occupancy issue.

thats it. Hope it's been useful

[Capt.BluePearl]

Hey, Nice work on the retrofit.
I’ve got a set of front driver and passenger MK7 GTI seats I’m trying to install in a 2011 MK6 Golf. You’re the first person I’ve found that actually posted info doing this exact retrofit. I’m only installing the front so I was hoping you could help me with that.

I was hoping you could tell me the correct wires to match from the MK7 seat to the original MK6 wires that I’ll need to connect/pin into the MK6 plugs going to the floor. I’ve got VCDS so can do coding or adaptation after install if necessary.

My project:
MK6 seats in 2011 Golf with heat & power back tilt
-Installing-
MK7 seat from 2017 GTI with heat & power back tilt

[drval85]

Hi, I was also hoping for more information on this. How did you identify the correct wires to pair? Trial and error?

How does the outer fabric fit with all the foam you removed? Still tight and OEM looking?

Any photos, either of the modifications you made or the finished product?


Thanks!

[C134xex]

Doing this to my golf now. Anybody help identifying which way to wire airbag in new seat? Old plug has brown, blue, black and new one has brown, white, green

[carsfeverguy]

For the Driver side airbags, what wires go to what connectors??? Colors Please!

[drval85]

I asked a couple questions, never got a response. OP hasn’t been on in a long time.