Installing Focus ST3 full leather Recaros in Fiesta ST

[bigbrotherjohn]

Yes, it can be done and they fit great. I got the seats from a junkyard for $200 each (I found the seats using http://car-part.com, see page 2 for details) and it took me about 2 hrs each to do the install. I ended up using the bottom part of the seat frame from the base fiesta seats and putting the ST3 Recaro seat bottom and bolstering on that. Then I bolted the Recaro seat backs to the retrofitted bottom seat frames. I took very detailed pictures of the whole process and then dropped my phone in water the next day, Doh!

Notes about electrical connections:
Nothing from the ST3 seats plugged right in to the Fiesta Harness. The airbags use different connector types and the seat heater connections dont exist on my car. The passenger seat pressure sensor was not swapped because I used the bottom half of the Fiesta seat frames anyway.

Here is a picture of the completed install:


Edit: I was able to recover most of the pictures from my phone!

Here is the drivers side Recaro vs. Non-Recaro. This Recaro is full leather and full electric and with electric heater from a 2014 FoST.



Here are the seat bottoms, the attachment points to the car are different, so the FoST Recaro will not bolt right into the FiST



The mounting rails are riveted to the bottom seat frames and will not be easy to swap between the two seats, this can be seen pretty well in the next 7 pictures.

Because of this, the strategy is to use the FiST bottom seat frame with the FoST upper seat frame bolted to it (the tops and bottoms are easy to separate with a few bolts). The FiST bottom seat frame will then get wrapped with the FoST Recaro leather and bolstering (the heated seat wiring is inside the bolstering and will come over with it.)





Here you can get a good look at the difference between the FoST Recaro seat wiring and the FiST non-Recaro wiring. On the Recaro all of the wiring goes to the one large block connector at the bottom left of the picture.











Here are the two bottom seat frames (passenger side) with the covers and bolstering removed (FoST Recaro on left, FiST non-Recaro on right). The black plastic piece on the Recaro frame supports the thigh bolsters and can be moved to the non-Recaro frame by drilling out the aluminum rivets (I think there are 3) and then riveting or bolting it to the FiST seat frame.

The seat belt switch and the pressure switch (passenger side only) remain on the seat and will plug into their original connectors. The airbag on the FoST Recaro top seat frame could be plugged into the FiST airbag connector but will need an adaptor. Disclaimer: I haven?t actually tested that this works because I don?t want to crash my car to check it, but I am hoping that the side airbag in the Recaro seat is triggered the same way as the side airbag in the non-Recaro seat.



Here is the FoST Recaro seat with the side plastic trim removed and the seat bottom leather and bolstering removed. The side plastic trim was almost identical on the Recaro and non-Recaro seats and I ended up using a combination of the trim pieces on the final install.



I don?t know what this is a picture of ?

 

[TempeST]

Nice work! do they slide? and do they hit anything while they do?

 

[bigbrotherjohn]

Thanks!

Yes, they slide all the way forward and back and recline without hitting anything.

 

[parapraxis24]

Nice! I bet you could source some Fiesta Titanium rear leather seats to more closely match the Recaro seats up front.

 

[2Cool]

Nice work, but the ST3 seats tried to crush my ribs to the point of bruising on a 10 minute test drive. The ST2 versions are much more comfortable.

Figure out any way to fool the airbag sensor or just driving with a trouble light on?

 

[me32]

Looks great. Too bad you didnt have a phone with an sd card. Would of saved everything

 

[MitchsFiesta]

What did you do with the airbag then? Resistor or just left if unplugged?

 

[bigbrotherjohn]

I like the idea about the Fiesta titanium seats, I could probably get those for pretty cheap.

For people wondering about the airbags, currently the airbag light is on, it doesn't bother me much but i would like to fix it. I'm planning to get the right connectors and make an adapter cable that connects the Focus Airbags to the Fiesta wiring, I don't think it will be hard to do.

 

[bigbrotherjohn]

I just left the airbag unplugged for now. I think that a 2.4 or 3 Ohm resistor would trick it and turn off the airbag light, but I haven't tried that yet.

-John C.

 

[MPA]

Those look good. I wish black had been an option on the Fiesta.

 

[Tex ST-AR]

Whoop whoop, maybe I will be able to get rid of my Horrable base FiST seats. Thanks for being the guinea pig. If I can find them I think I would rather do the ST1 cloth Recaro's so hopefully the lack of heated seats would make it easier.

 

[bigbrotherjohn]

I found the seats using http://car-part.com
They have a good search function and they let you specify full or partial leather for the Recaros.

 

[Probaholic1]

Holy snap, how the heck you scored those for 200 bux I tried searching didn't find anything. Would be nice if you can expand on it.

 

[bigbrotherjohn]

I think $200 is a really good deal and it took me a while to find that, but there are still a lot of good deals on there right now. Here is how I searched:

Choose Ford Focus and choose the year (there are more seats available for 2014, but 2015 has some as well)



You should get to this screen which lets you filter by which type of seat specifically you want. You can only select one at a time so you might have to go nd do the search a few times.



Here is what the search results look like, there are some good deals there. Be sure to contact the seller directly and ask for picture in case the description is wrong.


That's it! Hope it helps!

 

[parapraxis24]

I like the idea about the Fiesta titanium seats, I could probably get those for pretty cheap.

For people wondering about the airbags, currently the airbag light is on, it doesn't bother me much but i would like to fix it. I'm planning to get the right connectors and make an adapter cable that connects the Focus Airbags to the Fiesta wiring, I don't think it will be hard to do.

I wonder if the wires are the same colors between the FiST and FoST? When I swapped the seats in my old Passat with newer seats, the connectors were different but the harness was the same. Cut the airbag connector off the old seat and wire it in place of the connector on the new seat. Worked perfectly. Of course you'd have to source wiring diagrams for both cars just to make sure.

Not sure if that would affect the resale value of your old seats, if you even planned on selling them.

 

[Original J-Pat]

If you can figure out the heater connections this will be a breakthrough.

 

[92FOX]

That's awesome...great find for $200

 

[Probaholic1]

Yeah, I second calling the vendor. Found some for the FiST and when I called we had to verify turned out it was listed as Recaros but where in fact the regular cloth seats.

 

[bigbrotherjohn]

I wonder if the wires are the same colors between the FiST and FoST? When I swapped the seats in my old Passat with newer seats, the connectors were different but the harness was the same. Cut the airbag connector off the old seat and wire it in place of the connector on the new seat. Worked perfectly. Of course you'd have to source wiring diagrams for both cars just to make sure.

Not sure if that would affect the resale value of your old seats, if you even planned on selling them.

The wires are different colors and the connectors are different, I might cut them off the other seats, but I would prefer to get a new connector so I can put in new crimp pins instead of making a wire splice.

I m gonna try to get to the wiring in the next few weeks, I dont think the seat heaters will be hard, but I might need to run wires from the fuse box or something and find a switch that can fit in one of the blank spots. Ill let you guys know what I find.

 

[miguel.in.az]

Looks awesome! May have to do this to mine since I hate how dirty the cloth portion of my recaros gets just after a few days...