Last November I got interested in the possibility of swapping seats to get something with better support for track days, better materials, and some style points. The seats in the Mk2 TT were attractive because, while not Recaros, they are a drop-in mechanical fit and are pretty sexy. I have ridden in an R8 that had what looked to be identical seats. I have heard that S4 Recaros fit as well, but I was more sure about the TTs.
I got disappointed by a local wrecker's set that ended up having water damage and potential mold issues. The rear seats had black spots on the alcantara, so I wasn't willing to risk it.
(They later sold for full asking price, I was told.) So I widened the search and found a pair halfway across the country.
Unfortunately, they cut the wiring harness. At least they included the plugs and I requested the sockets from the car side to help figure out the wiring. There was some bolster wear, but I found a product called "Black Leather Jacket" that promised to be easy to use and capable of hiding it. I was pleasantly surprised by the results.
The first hurdle was the fact that the plugs in the A3 are completely different. I wanted to be able to swap back to my old seats or sell them for maximum value, so I ended up buying a set of new plugs from the dealer. The contact ends of the TT wiring do not fit these plugs, so I got repair wires to splice onto the TT seat harness. I paid for a day of access to the audi tech. lit. site and downloaded schematics for the TT and A3 and spent a day identifying then matching up the wire colors and pins. Here is what I came up with.
I took a few quick measurements of the inside edges of the bolsters and found the TT to be about 1" narrower on both the bottom and back as well as about 1" longer front to back on the seat bottom. The bolsters are steeper angled, so this wasn't a snugger fit for me, just more supportive when you contact the edges. The alcantara is also really grippy.
The nasty surprise came when I installed the passenger seat and got air bag codes and inactive passenger bag. Turns out the wrecker removed and sold the J706 occupancy sensor control module from the bottom of the seat and I didn't realize it. They sent me an A3 seat bottom with intact sensor to swap. Since there were stickers saying not to unplug them, I took it out as a unit and after much effort got it into the TT seat without completely stripping the cover.
It was exactly the same as the TT sensor pad, so it fit ok after some wrangling in tight spaces. Here is the one from the TT seat:
Note that when unplugging the airbag portion of the harness, the battery is supposed to be disconnected and you should touch the striker on the door frame to discharge static electricity. There was still an adaptation to do in VAG COM to get the car to accept the new J706 unit, but after that, the codes cleared and the airbags are all active when appropriate, with full OEM functionality for child / adult.
So here is the final result.
Cheers!
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Originally Posted by JRutter
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