Operation Volvo Seats In A Prius Part 2

Shhhhhh! :tape: Please don't do that! :tape2: If something goes wrong I will swap to the original seats and hope to get it repaired under warranty without having to go through the hassle of proving that the Volvo seats didn't somehow cause the transmission to fall out or the Traction battery fail. LOL!

Wildkow

 

Success!! ​

The Drivers side seat is now installed!

The Black and Red wires next to the console are the temporary power wires which are attached to the Black and Red power wires down near the right front seat mount attachment point and will be replaced when I finish the passenger side.


Another view notice the washed out color on the seat belt release? That's from the junk seats I bought at the Junk Yard, why they just leave seats out in the open is beyond me.




Close up view of the controls. Memory function is disabled but since I drive the Prius 95% of the time no biggie.



Fuzzy back view of the Volvo seat with the Prius seat mount attachment points welded onto the Volvo rail. The 2005 seat lined up perfectly with the steering wheel and with the controls on the correct side.



Simple back view for comparison.



Original Volvo seats I purchased for $300.00 notice the two black boxes toward the bottom of the picture? Kiss them goodbye.



Here is the new setup. notice the Prius seat mount attachment points welded to the front of the Volvo Rail. I will also have schematics of this wiring layout after I get back from our Roadtrip.



It takes eight relays to drive the four motor eight way adjustable seats, with heat but no lumbar support. Discovered that after I had purchased these seats. ​

After my wife and I get back from a 9 or 10 day roadtrip I hope to have this sorted into a better DIY step-by-step format with wiring schematic, tips, fabrication and other helpful hints. The rest of the pictures not incorporated into the post are mostly seat mount points. I will label them and give you better instructions for how to attach to the Volvo seat when I get back.

Wildkow

 

LOL! That's the problem with trying to effectively communicate sarcasm, humor and even anger on forum's like this. Unless your a Hemingway or Joyce Carol Oates people misinterpret the intent of your written word and think when you're trying to be humorous that you're being a butthead. This, as is my case, happens a lot when you are a butthead trying to be humorous. In any case that's why I use the smilies to try and convey either seriousness, humor, anger or something else.

Hope that helps! :yo:

Wildkow

p.s. the PM joke was ound:

p.p.s. hey man don't reinstate that promise post here as often as you have questions or something to add.

 

There is always an open invitation to sit on my lap, which invariably leads to an interesting conversation, usually about the first thing that pops up! ound:

Actually I would have the passenger seat already installed but the cost to have Electric Labs (EL) do this ($2250) was just too much. Almost all the cost was contained in Labor and much of that was the time taken to figure out what to do. I had EL do the driver seat and install all the relays for the different seat motors an this cost me almost $1100 but once again most of the cost was contained in labor and the biggest factor was the time taken to figure out what to do. After a brief discussion with them they told me that the cost should be around $800-$1000 to install both seats. This does not include the cost for the seats.

But for the fabrication of the seat mounts $150/seat I do believe this can be easily done by an average guy/gal that knows how to use tools. As stated in my prior post I hope to do an entire DIY step-by-step guide. At first I was going to video the entire process but when I realized I was getting in slightly over my head I took it to the experts. I told them about PC and how I wanted to document the process and they were willing to let me photo or video but when these guys are ready to work they don't want to wait around for me to show up with the camera. Also even though they were willing to document the process themselves at over $100/hr I couldn't afford that!

So right now all I have is the driver seat installed and temporary power coming from the cigarette lighter power adapter in the console to the seat.

Next I will figure the power from either the front fuse panel (30 amp fuse) down the door and across to both seats or I will take it directly from the battery in the back with and inline fuse.

After that I will get the wiring schematic from EL and publish it for your perusal. I will also try to assemble a list of parts, as they can get quite expensive. The EL guys did a great job hunting down the relays for me as the ones they had on hand were $68 each! 68 X 8 = $544 X 2 seats = $1088.00 and that don't include tax! But they were able to locate some for $27 each and I do believe there might be some cheaper out there or at the junk yard. They did say they could have used the ones in the Volvo PSM (Power Seat Module) but the amount of time figure that out at +$100/hr made for one expensive proposition. Perhaps a PC member could figure that out and if so please contact me I have the module and the wiring schematic.

Once the above is done I will fabricate and document the seat mounts.

But first it's vacation time we were supposed to leave today but I doubt that is going to happen so early tomorrow we will head out from Fresno to Yosemite National Park, go over Tioga Pass, hang a right for a hot as hell journey through Death Valley and end the day in Las Vegas. Monday will be CanyonLands in Southern Utah and then on to Salt Lake City maybe SouthWest Wyoming, Tuesday will be Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park and hopefully we will end up in Bozeman, MT, my hometown where I was growing up. From there on Wednesday we will hopefully do a loop around Glacier National Park and head out for Reno that night. By Thursday I hope to be in Reno for the Hot August Nights Auto Show and by Sunday we will be home. We have no reservations and no set itinerary because it's a ROADTRIP BABY! :car:

Wildkow

 

Just did 11+ hours in my new Volvo seats and the one thing that comes to mind is !SWEET! Got on the road a little after nine a.m. drove through Yosemite > over Tioga Pass down to Mono Lake and on to Bishop, CA then across Death Valley 120 degrees F to Badwater Basin, lowest point in the USA and ended the day in Pahrump, NV. Yes my nice person is tired and a bit sore but what the hell it was an 11+ hrs for me and my wife did about an hour. There is no where near the pain I had with the stock Prius seats after just 15-20 minutes. OK, one thing I would change is to raise the front mount points about an inch. Also try really hard to get the Volvo seats with Lumbar Support.

Here's some pics. . .


Tioga Pass


Mobile station at the bottom of Tioga Pass/Lee Vining Junction, notice the price? We just went inside and peed, didn't buy any gas. LOL!


Mono Lake looks weird to me with water in it! LOL!



Sand Dunes in Death Valley it was 120 F here and that was almost 6:00 pm so I guess the high today was 122-123 F which tied my personal record for heat. Hoover Dam was 123 F last year during a visit.

This is Bad Water Basin the lowest point in the continental United States. I don't know if you can see it but the temp was 117 F at 7:15 pm, the Garmin Nuvi 660 indicates the elevation as -232 feet but we were up on the road embankment about 30-40 feet above the Valley floor. It was hotter than a popcorn fart in the desert!


Wildkow

 

Sorry all but I've been back for a couple of weeks and Electric Labs still hasn't got my wiring schematic done. Grrrrrrr! I'm going again tomorrow to see what they have and hope to be able to post soon as well as provide further details on mounting the seats. :nod:

This is a great place to search for Volvo seats Car-Part.com--Used Auto Parts Market. I would suggest that you stay between the years 2004-2006. There are plenty of them out there at reasonable prices.

Wildkow

 

OK here it is . . .