@benzivr6 @3 bar
I see that you both did this swap.

Can you help me out?

 

Can you cut the A6 body side connectors with any length of wiring? I've never done the swap but there were at least a dozen or more that did the fronts.

 

That was my back-up plan ; cut off as much of the A6 harness wiring that I can and find a sacrificial set of Passat full power seats to cut those connectors off and make an adapter section.
Most of those on here that did this are no longer active, only ben and 3 bar are still here.

I am sure that I can get the fronts to work, the rears are where I need some idea of how difficult it will be.

 

I was reading somewhere that the rear A6 seats are too wide. You can't modify the seat itself and that you'll have to cut into the the Passat's side panels to make the fit. Looks to me you'll need to grab some extra Passat interior panels and do some testing.

 

There are pages and pages about A6 seat swaps.
Seems as though the ones that managed (few at that) to do it only have pictures of the front and or the the pictures aren't displaying because of broken host site links.

 

Yeah, the rear seats are gonna be a challenge. First off, they are secured with u-shaped hooks while the Passat uses hinges. And the undersides of the A6 are foam, not metal, so I have no way to weld the hinges to them.
It looks like both side bolsters are the same size, so those can't be swapped to create any additional space.

One way or another, I will get these to work.

 

I went back to the junkyard today to do some rear seat swapping between the Allroad and a wagon.

Too much BS to complete this project.

1) The A6 seat backs mounting points are approx. 1" wider than the Passats. Plus they have an offset pivot point that I can't just swap out. I could cut the mounts flush and install a bushing, but...

2) The bench seat doesn't even come close to fitting w/o having to remove the hog-rings along the back corners, trim the foam, then cut and re-attach the leather. Plus, I still have to find a way to secure them down.

Unless I have a sudden burst of motivation, or someone who did this chimes in with another way, I will just swap out the front seats and buy some seat covers for the back.

 

I haven't read very many of these seat swap threads, but I thought I read where someone swapped the door cards for the back seat(s) to fit better.
I tend to take on some grandiose projects, this is one I've considered many a time but have left alone. Even though I long for a more comfortable seat, especially in my W8.

 

Theres a decent enough slack BUT like PZ said it will make your life a whole lot easier is you can obtain as much of the donor cars seat harness as possible especially if you want to make a jumper harness if your current Passat seats are trash.

Now letting you know back seats are NOT plug & play and you have to do some modifications.
1. Gotta cut about 3/4” on each side of the lower support swivel bar.
2. Have to get the correct middle support bracket (Varies depending on which Passat you have and which vehicle the C5 rear seats came of out.
3. Sometimes the upper locking pin has to be re-positioned. Minor issue but still might need to be addressed.
This also depends on if you car is a 4motion or FWD & if your car has the folding seat option.

So you head back to the donor Allroad vehicle, Try your best and get as much supporting parts from that car as possible. Good luck

 

Theres a decent enough slack BUT like PZ said it will make your life a whole lot easier is you can obtain as much of the donor cars seat harness as possible especially if you want to make a jumper harness if your current Passat seats are trash.

Now letting you know back seats are NOT plug & play and you have to do some modifications.
1. Gotta cut about 3/4” on each side of the lower support swivel bar.
2. Have to get the correct middle support bracket (Varies depending on which Passat you have and which vehicle the C5 rear seats came of out.
3. Sometimes the upper locking pin has to be re-positioned. Minor issue but still might need to be addressed.
This also depends on if you car is a 4motion or FWD & if your car has the folding seat option.

So you head back to the donor Allroad vehicle, Try your best and get as much supporting parts from that car as possible. Good luck

Thanks for weighing in. Seeing as you are 1 of the 2 who did this and are still active here, I was hoping you would.

I did get all the pieces to the wiring harness puzzle. I just have to put them together.

I have a 4MOTION wagon, and the rear seat backs do fold down.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by middle support bracket. Both the Allroad I am getting the seats from and the "guinea pig" Passat wagon at the junkyard have these brackets :

but mine doesn't. Do I need these ? I hope not because they would just seem to get in the way of the A6 seat bottom from being in the correct position.
Also, is that pin on the left side of my photo is where you say I need to cut that 3/4" +/- ?

If you still have the car that you did this on, I would surely appreciate it if you could post a few photos, particularly how you converted the u-shaped hold-downs in the A6 seat bottoms over to the hinges used by Passats. That one's got me stumped.

 

Hey bro, I'll see if I can snap a few pics for yah of the middle support bracket I was talking about I know between the Passat 4motion 7 C5/A6 cars theres 3/4 different version but I will also try and snap a pic of the part number I used

 

Thank you for any pictures you can offer. At least upgrading the rear seats is a purely mechanical process - unlike the fronts where I am trying to de-cipher the various wiring diagrams to replace my power seats with those of the A6 and have everything work. If they made the heating circuits the same, why couldn't they make all the others the same? Plus, going from a 28-pin control module to a 32-pin is really giving my brain cells a work-out as to what terminals I need to move.

 

Sorry not to provide those scans of the wiring diagrams from the Bentley. Scanner is being cranky now and I have personal business taking precedence over troubleshooting flatbed scanner operations.

 

BTW, the black Allroad at the Oakland PNP has seats like those if anyone else is inspired to upgrade...

 

Mine is a Non-power GLS but I just tapped 12v from the 75x terminal & ran my own stable ground to the chassis. Also full power GLX has the memory seating on the seats vs the C5/A6 has it on the door cards so that feature will not work regardless unless you Bentley-Commando the harness together.