2007 Vue seat swap! Sick of my park bench factories...

[Woodpecker]

So, I like my little 2007 Vue 3.5. It does all I need it to do, and it has had all of the maintenance done (A/C compressor valve, timing belt/tensioners/water pump, trans fluid drained/refilled several times) that these are known to need. All is well, right? No.

I can't stand the factory seats. I've been on more comfortable park benches. They're the typical cloth/pleather, with the pleather peeling up on the driver's side, and permanently stained. Apparently these will stain with water alone. So, do I try to get the seats rebuilt in some way, or what? Nah, I wanted to make this difficult. So, I got these Cadillac XTS heated/cooled seats, and the party begins this weekend. Any other seat swappers out there? I found the guy with the WRX driver's seat, but that's about it.

[Woodpecker]

It's not much of an update, but it's something. The Cadillac driver's seat has the memory module with a zillion wires plugged into it, in a total of 5 plugs. So, what wires are needed to just make the seat move? Never mind the heated/cooled part or anything else. On the large harness that plugs into the car, there are a large black (ground), a large red/yellow (main 12v+), and about another dozen small wires. Just hooking the large red/yellow to positive and the large black to ground gives no response. So, I looked at the module, and on one of the plugs, there were only 2 wires. There was the large red/yellow, and a small purple/red on a single plug. I figured the other was a power as well, so I put the red/yellow and purple/red together on positive, and the large black on ground. Boom, I have power to move the seat in all directions.

Seat bracket mods to happen Friday!

[Woodpecker]

OK, after an all day adventure, they're in. It's a tight fit, but they fit and look like they're meant to be there. What do you folks think?

[Cavell]

Do they have side airbags?

[far2grumpy]

Seats look fantastic ... job well done ... I'm certain others will try this and I'll be thinking about it.

[Woodpecker]

Originally Posted by Cavell

Do they have side airbags?

Yes, but not hooked to anything.

[Woodpecker]

The Cadillac seats just have a flat bottom rail, with hooks in the front like the Saturn. Unfortunately, the hooks are about an inch too far apart, and there's not practical way to move them inward. So, I cut all the hooks off of the Cadillac seats, and used the forward holes in the Cadillac rail to bolt them to a 2" wide strip of flat bar steel. The inboard set of hooks from the Saturn (I cut all the feet off of the Saturn rails) goes directly in the hole in the Cadillac rail, and the outside feet go at just under 16-1/2", as pictured. On the rear, I used the Saturn feet, but turned around backwards as the Cadillac rails are longer. I just flipped them around, put the seats in the front hooks as pictured, and set the seats down with the rear feet hand tight. I then put the seat all the way forward, and drilled through the Saturn feet on the rear. I didn't even have to remove the seats again. I just drilled and bolted in the rear section, then tightened up the rear feet to the floor. I hope that makes sense.

[Woodpecker]

The other shots were at night, so here's a daylight pic. I couldn't be happier with this mod!

[Manospeed]

The seats look good. Would love to do this as the stock seats are utter garbage, but I'm at 139,000 miles and I'm not sure sure I want to spend any money to improve the interior at this point.

Curious, where were you able to source Cadillac seats and how much did they end up costing you?

[Woodpecker]

Originally Posted by Manospeed

The seats look good. Would love to do this as the stock seats are utter garbage, but I'm at 139,000 miles and I'm not sure sure I want to spend any money to improve the interior at this point.

Curious, where were you able to source Cadillac seats and how much did they end up costing you?

I'm at 149,000 miles as we speak.

I'm in Houston, so I have many, many salvage yards to choose from. However, I started the search at car-part.com (salvage yard directory - VERY handy for guys like me that like to do things like this), which in many cases will show you actual pictures. I didn't know what seats I wanted. I had measurements, and an idea of what I wanted them to look like. The space for the seats in the Vue is actually narrow, compared to many seats in current vehicles, so I could tell by looking what MAY fit. In other words, Tahoe seats weren't going in there!

I could find black seats all day long, but it's actually hard to find late-model seats out of anything that might work in the space given, and are a light grey. BMW seats were another possibility. It get hot as Hades here, and black leather is just a no-go for me - but actually wouldn't look bad. After much searching, I went and looked at these, and the measurements were spot on, if not a *tad* too wide. However, if installed just as I did, they barely rub the b-pillar plastic on the outboard side, and just miss the console on the inboard side. I paid $400 total for the seats.

[Bismarck318]

Originally Posted by Manospeed

The seats look good. Would love to do this as the stock seats are utter garbage, but I'm at 139,000 miles and I'm not sure sure I want to spend any money to improve the interior at this point.

You would have to evaluate your frame & undercarriage, the yearly budget for my Vue is going into constant bearing replacements. Woodpecker is in an area where he is not battling the elements & road corrosives for 7 months out of the year.

I'm hard pressed to rationalize the timing belt/water pump replacement if the engine may fall out next year unfortunately. I spent $500 on some mounts that were supposed to solve a shake at highway speeds about 5 years back that only mildly improved it for a while.

Nice job on the seats, did you find a way to match the rear ones?

One thing about seat replacement would the mounting hold up in a crash condition.

[Woodpecker]

Originally Posted by Bismarck318

You would have to evaluate your frame & undercarriage, the yearly budget for my Vue is going into constant bearing replacements. Woodpecker is in an area where he is not battling the elements & road corrosives for 7 months out of the year.

I'm hard pressed to rationalize the timing belt/water pump replacement if the engine may fall out next year unfortunately. I spent $500 on some mounts that were supposed to solve a shake at highway speeds about 5 years back that only mildly improved it for a while.

Nice job on the seats, did you find a way to match the rear ones?

One thing about seat replacement would the mounting hold up in a crash condition.

The seats don't match, but I don't care. They're all grey! This is a $3000 SUV on a good day, and it's just a daily beater - even though it still looks pretty good.

I think my mounting will hold up at least as good as factory. The steel bar up front isn't going anywhere, and the "legs" with the hooks in the front are factory. It's held together with Grade 8 bolts. The rear "legs" are also factory, and held to the rails with Grade 8 bolts. I could pull it out and weld some of it, but I really don't think it's necessary.

[Manospeed]

Originally Posted by Bismarck318

You would have to evaluate your frame & undercarriage, the yearly budget for my Vue is going into constant bearing replacements. Woodpecker is in an area where he is not battling the elements & road corrosives for 7 months out of the year.

I'm hard pressed to rationalize the timing belt/water pump replacement if the engine may fall out next year unfortunately. I spent $500 on some mounts that were supposed to solve a shake at highway speeds about 5 years back that only mildly improved it for a while.

I paid a mechanic to replace the front bearings as they failed 2 years ago. Last summer, I decided to play mechanic with zero experience and replaced rotors, brake pads, struts, stabilizer bar links, rear brake lines, and drums plus all associated hardware.

This year I have to do:

1. Inner/outer tie rod ends
2. Crankshaft position sensor
3. Spark plugs
4. Ignition coil
5. Ignition coil boots
6. Ignition control module (ICM)

Also need to (eventually) get to:

1. Falling headliner on driver's side where it meets the windshield
2. Rear windshield wiper motor
3. Transmission fluid and filter replacement

I'm around 138K miles and thus far (knock on wood), the car starts and runs without any issues, although I do have some error codes which should be fixed with the new ignition parts. Unfortunately, the frame has rust as I live in the Midwest (aka Rust belt), but it hasn't gotten to the point where it is affecting the integrity of the vehicle.

[s12_200zx]

Originally Posted by Woodpecker

OK, after an all day adventure, they're in. It's a tight fit, but they fit and look like they're meant to be there. What do you folks think?

Did you have to tap and drill new holes for these seats? Im thinking of doing this as well. Nice mod.