12/13 passat owners seat upgrades?

So I've searched for decent results. None to be found except vague mentioning on attempts. No finished products or finished pictures for any of these attempts on here.

Platform.
2012 passat sel premium

Plan:
Replace horrid oem seats with CC seats

Stage:
Attempting to track down wiring diagrams to safely do this swap in a propper way.

Parts utilized:
Driver and passenger seat 2010 CC with heat and 12 position power.


Updates to follow as I get there.

This is a simply comfort swap as I'm 6ft 2in and about 230lbs. The car for the money invested so far is uncomfortable for the intent I purchased it. Long road trips. Car sits most of the time in the same spot so this retrofit taking a while; isn't causing me a hardship at all. When this is complete. I will continue to write another pic filled thread if wanted that is; for the 4 door kessy handle upgrade. It's a modification for my 4 yr old that loves opening and closing the doors like her own boss.



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I measured Touareg seats when I got my Passat, they looked like a bolt in but I never pursued it. I’m 6’5” and 330#, so the Passat isn’t supremely comfortable, but it isn’t intolerable on 4-5 hour drives for me.

I’m very interested in your swap. I would like to do mine if I’m going to keep the car 5 more years. My driving has declined from 40K per year to 20K per year, and I could probably get it down to 15K, so I’m debating on going back to driving a truck daily both for comfort and 4wd.

Why not just change the foam in the seat bottom. I am thinking of doing that, the OEM foam is way too hard and an upholstery shop may be able to fix that. Seems easier than swapping out the entire seat.

R seats will fit as well front only as well.

BroncoAZ said:

I measured Touareg seats when I got my Passat, they looked like a bolt in but I never pursued it. I’m 6’5” and 330#, so the Passat isn’t supremely comfortable, but it isn’t intolerable on 4-5 hour drives for me.

I’m very interested in your swap. I would like to do mine if I’m going to keep the car 5 more years. My driving has declined from 40K per year to 20K per year, and I could probably get it down to 15K, so I’m debating on going back to driving a truck daily both for comfort and 4wd.

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I've mainly driven this one on longer trips like 8 hrs and some days taken it to work and smaller commute trips to keep everything moving and in order, if I was 6'5" I'm 100% certain I'd have opted to snatch up a jetta or golf wagon and swapped seats into those vs the passat; I have a feeling this nms chassis wasnt designed for taller individuals.

Tom in PT said:

Why not just change the foam in the seat bottom. I am thinking of doing that, the OEM foam is way too hard and an upholstery shop may be able to fix that. Seems easier than swapping out the entire seat.

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Because that wouldn't mitigate my main issues with height and non adjustable front lower portion of the seat; if you look real close; the cc frame bottom has a second motor on the front allowing the so to say thigh area to be raised and lowered. But you may have hit the nail a bit there; it my assumption is correct; I might end up having to swap the harnesses on the bottoms from the passat to the cc seats, it's a slower project due to my other tdis and vws needing some winterizing attention at the moment certainly an option I may consider though.

thundershorts said:

R seats will fit as well front only as well.

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R seats referring to golf R ? If so please be a tad more specific because I kind of intended the thread as a full info not just a brain storm kind of thread* no rudeness intended at all; but unless the seats are a plug and play or someone has done a full write up; I'm willing to challenge propper fit till proven otherwise I spent countless days picking and searching through local yards to finally find these cc seats. I intend to do the rears also if I can manage to make them work as the rears I grabbed have the center executive *or whatever it's called. Cubby hole vs 3 seats

Thanks anyone and everyone for any info to begin with seriously I think it's an amazing platform but has its issues as well. Seating being my 2nd one to tackle.

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I had CC seats in our car for a while. They work fine. You'll need to swap over the butt sensor from the NMS passenger seat, and possibly recalibrate it.

If you can't find the diagrams let me know, I might have them stashed someplace.

-J

Subscribed... There was someone on Vortex who upgraded to CC seats, but it wasnt very thorough. I would love to do this, i still miss my recaros in my old 2003 (swapped them into my 01 after crashing the 03). I lost the heat but man they were comfy.

I actually snagged a passat replacement seat out of a wrecker for less than $100 for my 2013 from a junkyard as mine was already wearing down from getting in and out so much. Looks like there is a cc seat for $250, i would definitely do this... or pay you to do it the next time i have to come to lake barkley for business

hitman1985 said:

I've mainly driven this one on longer trips like 8 hrs and some days taken it to work and smaller commute trips to keep everything moving and in order, if I was 6'5" I'm 100% certain I'd have opted to snatch up a jetta or golf wagon and swapped seats into those vs the passat; I have a feeling this nms chassis wasnt designed for taller individuals.

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For me the fit of my right knee against the console or center stack, the fit of my left elbow against the door, and my head hitting the headliner are the primary concerns. The Jetta certainly has a better console and center stack for my big knees than the Passat, but I found the seats unsupportive and generally felt a bit cramped in the car. We had a 2009 Jetta, the center console in that car was bad against my knee, not a problem on the newer Jettas. I looked at the Golf and Golf Sport Wagon, unfortunately the center stack hits me in the bone right below the ball of my knee which is a dealbreaker. I also seriously contemplated an A5 before the Passat because of the large doors, but I had to recline the seat too far because of height issues. For me the Passat is a close to best fit. Headroom is adequate, elbow room is adequate, and the right knee isn’t perfect, but is better than the Golf based models as it hits my leg in the muscle when my foot is on the accelerator and I can get comfortable when relaxing on a trip. The seats in the Passat go back far enough that I actually have to point my toe a bit to get the clutch all the way to the floor.

I would like the front of the seat to adjust for height as well. On other vehicles I’ve cut and welded the seat frame to adjust heights as necessary. My Nissan Titan has a seat that was too high in the butt, so I cut 1.25” out of the rail which made it better. As a bigger dude I feel like I’m sitting on the Passat seat as opposed to in the Passat seat. The Touareg seats are slightly wider in the upper body area, and I like them in my current and former Touareg (no issues on 6-8 hour trips).

compu_85 said:

I had CC seats in our car for a while. They work fine. You'll need to swap over the butt sensor from the NMS passenger seat, and possibly recalibrate it.

If you can't find the diagrams let me know, I might have them stashed someplace.

-J

Click to expand...

Lex Tdi said:

Subscribed... There was someone on Vortex who upgraded to CC seats, but it wasnt very thorough. I would love to do this, i still miss my recaros in my old 2003 (swapped them into my 01 after crashing the 03). I lost the heat but man they were comfy.

I actually snagged a passat replacement seat out of a wrecker for less than $100 for my 2013 from a junkyard as mine was already wearing down from getting in and out so much. Looks like there is a cc seat for $250, i would definitely do this... or pay you to do it the next time i have to come to lake barkley for business

Click to expand...

I'm a mk4 guy; so in my 2 tdi *jetta/golf I have heated leathers; the gli has of course the high bolster recaros; and honestly I like my heated leathers. But the mk6 golf tdi seats in my mk5 rabbit are very much more supportive and have heat.

BroncoAZ said:

For me the fit of my right knee against the console or center stack, the fit of my left elbow against the door, and my head hitting the headliner are the primary concerns. The Jetta certainly has a better console and center stack for my big knees than the Passat, but I found the seats unsupportive and generally felt a bit cramped in the car. We had a 2009 Jetta, the center console in that car was bad against my knee, not a problem on the newer Jettas. I looked at the Golf and Golf Sport Wagon, unfortunately the center stack hits me in the bone right below the ball of my knee which is a dealbreaker. I also seriously contemplated an A5 before the Passat because of the large doors, but I had to recline the seat too far because of height issues. For me the Passat is a close to best fit. Headroom is adequate, elbow room is adequate, and the right knee isn’t perfect, but is better than the Golf based models as it hits my leg in the muscle when my foot is on the accelerator and I can get comfortable when relaxing on a trip. The seats in the Passat go back far enough that I actually have to point my toe a bit to get the clutch all the way to the floor.

I would like the front of the seat to adjust for height as well. On other vehicles I’ve cut and welded the seat frame to adjust heights as necessary. My Nissan Titan has a seat that was too high in the butt, so I cut 1.25” out of the rail which made it better. As a bigger dude I feel like I’m sitting on the Passat seat as opposed to in the Passat seat. The Touareg seats are slightly wider in the upper body area, and I like them in my current and former Touareg (no issues on 6-8 hour trips).

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Hit the nail on the head sir! The arm rest or whatever its supposed to be; is useless on the left; the knee space is one of my issues as well. But the mkv platform like you said with the 09 jetta is even worse. Even the pedal placement on the mkv was horribly close on the automatics at least. I dropped mk6 golf seats in with high bolsters so much better!

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The pedal assembly is too far to the right in the Passat. I swapped the brake pedal on my manual car to a pedal from an automatic with the large pad removed to give my size 16 foot room to use the accelerator without rubbing the brake pedal, I only gained 3/8” of clearance, but it made a difference. The clutch feels like it’s dead center in the car, not much can be done with the plastic pedal though. I’ve thought about trimming the right side of the pedal and making a spacer to shift the pedal pad left and out maybe 1/2”, but I need to buy another pedal and get access to a mill to make the spacer.

I would love to modify the dash for right knee room, but there’s no way I could make it look OEM.

It would seem that a Q5-Q7 or a toureg tdi with those cushy seats might fit you better than the passat. I have golf r seats in my golf s and love them but they might be too narrow for you. The Eagles have a lineman about you size...6'5" 340#.

thundershorts said:

It would seem that a Q5-Q7 or a toureg tdi with those cushy seats might fit you better than the passat. I have golf r seats in my golf s and love them but they might be too narrow for you. The Eagles have a lineman about you size...6'5" 340#.

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You are correct, I fit great in the Touareg. The Q7 is good, but the Q5 is too small. I drove a 2011 Touareg TDI for a couple years, and my wife has a 2015 Touareg TDI presently. The Passat is my economy car that I bought for work driving of 40K miles per year.

Update:
Cc driver seat mounted and wiring harness created

Issues I've identified but still need to fix:
1. Driver side seat position sensor (rail mounted) /// cc seats didn't have these
2. Passenger seat heating enabled at all times ( assuming this is due to the difference in systems )


So I personally did this a certain way that most wouldn't agree with I'm sure.

Took stock seat side wiring and spare body side wiring; created adapting harness via buttsplices (heatshrinked decent quality ones)

Overall im so much more comfortable as opposed to the factory seats. I'll get into measuring and such all later; but I plan to see a few things before I continue.

- if I disable memory seats will it cure passenger heater on at all times or no.
- seat position sensor is on hand for driver side; just didn't think about it when I mounted the seat last night.

I highly encourage anyone doing or attempting this without professional background to check; double check and triple check anything and most of all - get spare wiring from a junkyard so you don't have to modify your car side or seat side in case you sell or trade the car

My 2 cents. I'll update with pics another time. For now that's all the time I did have for this.

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that’s awesome I would love to do this! looking forward to hear if you get the heat turned off. do the rest of the controls work?

p.e.fletcher said:

that’s awesome I would love to do this! looking forward to hear if you get the heat turned off. do the rest of the controls work?

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Yessir; and this far I have the driver seat mostly sorted out; heat works only when enabled. Issue was the driver seat memory function was keeping it on; so I disabled it in vcds and all is good. Still have to sort out the airbag and occupation stuff for the passenger one; but I'll get around to that. Another quick picture...

And a little personal input of mine.
After its all sorted. Was it worth it. 1000% yes. The seating position is now closer to what I think it should be for someone 73 inches and roughly 220lbs. I am no longer hitting the sunroof when sitting up. And these are like a nicer firmer grip vs the originals. Also easier to keep clean!

I will at some point tackle the rear benches and pieces but currently trying to work as much as possible since the transportation industry is busy

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Did you ever attempt the rear seat? I put MK6 golf R front seats in my 2018, wanting to add a CC rear seat.