Operation Volvo Seats in a prius

OK Ive calmed down now. I will post the driver side swap I did today. Kind of a PITA for the brackets but you must consider I dont have a shop with a welder, grinder and cutter.

Let me tell you its PURE freaken HEAVEN having Volvo 8 way (9 way w/lumbar adjust) heated electric seats in my car. Now my wife is complaining that she wants the passenger side swapped out this weekend (ugh). Both of us fell in love with these seats. Oh and Im 6'4" and can move the seat back so I cant touch feet or hands. Or I can move it forward so my tiny wife can be crammed into the steering wheel. It also moves up and down about 5 inches for her and I. I can sit on the floor and she can be jacked up high.

One oddity of the seats is that the controls are on the left so they offset the rails a bit. It made the drivers seat 2 inches to the side(off center) of the steering wheel. I swapped the driver/passenger seat so now its centered again. I lost the memory functions but who cares. I drive the car 99% of the time anyway. The controls are on the inside now (R side) for driver and L side for passenger. One last thing if you take a look at the passenger shot you can see my head is even with the side post. I have to peek around it when turning left etc. No biggie really just an FYI. Now for the tele-scopic steering wheel mod.

Heres a pic of the driver side swap.

 

I can move the brain and controls over to the other seat. Its just more work. Only one seat has the brain which is the drivers seat. I would have to switch controls and the brain to the passenger seat. They are very easy to work on so maybe I will do it.

Im going to finish wiring up the power and heater this weekend. Then Im going to swap my serius for xm. Im using an aux 12v and extension power wire to power the seat.. Im still not finished with the install.

I bought the prius and never drove it the seats were so bad. Its brand new and been parked for 4 weeks.

I had to track down the seats, fab the brackets and figure out the wiring. I actually had to go back to the junk yard and probe the seat harness with a multi-meter to figure out which wires were what.

 

I still might have some one fab. some pro looking seats brackets but for now I had a metal supply shop cut 4 pieces of metal. The front two were just rectangle steel plates with 2 holes drilled in them. One hole for the oem mount and one hole to put a bolt and nut through for the seat. The backs were more trouble. I had them cut 3 inch sq. steel tube 3" long. I tipped the sq. tube on its side edge and shoved it under the rear seat foot. The volvo seat feet in the back bend down at a 45 angle. So the bent foot grips the slope of the tilted sq. tube. I drilled holes in the side of the tube and mounted the rear of the seat. I had the metal shop cut some 2" wide steel plate to weld to the front of the sq. tube to bolt to the oem bolt holes. It looks OK and is barely noticeable. If I go over a 1000' cliff and Im rolling all the way to the bottom Im not sure the seats will hold.

 

Rodge that. The seats are identical except for seat belt and controls so I should be able to move over both.

 

EDIT: It just occurred to me that if the Volvo passenger seat is in the Prius driver side, then the seat's side airbag is now on the wrong side. A loss, IMO. But as between a side airbag and a side curtain airbag, I'd rather have a side curtain airbag.

The seat backs could be swapped to retain the AB.

 

S60 seats 8 way electric + lumbar + seat heaters

 

More pics of the install. The bent legs are rears. The green dots are leg mount positions.