New Jeep seats for a 2002

[nlocascio]

Just some info if anyone is interested in replacing their worn out front seats on their liberty. I have a 2002 limited and my leather seats were falling apart. Driver's side had torn leather, had to weld the frame in several places where it had cracked and the recline mech broke. So I found a set of very nice, although not the same color, black leather seats from a 2012 liberty for $250! All the info I found, said no way they will fit. Well they do. Mounting points are almost the same. Big difference is the wiring. Also seat belt buckle sensor. Old seats use a hall effect sensor and magnet, while new ones use a simple switch. Found that out after install when my airbag light came on! The new seats are power with heat and memory function. Memory function will not work of course and I did not hook up the heat, even though the old ones have it. Don't need heated seats, the Arizona sun does that already . Here are some pictures. If you need details on what needs to be moded I can try to help out.

 

[wheeee32]

What did you do to make it work with different sensors?

 

[nlocascio]

Right now I used the old seat belt buckle from old driver seat, but it's too long. For some reason the passenger one on the new one works fine. Going to install the 2012 buckle on the driver's seat and put the sensor under the seat and just make it think the seat belt is aways buckled

 

[HoosierJeeper]

Looks awesome, so the mounting points are close enough? Any mods to the seats?

What about the power?

 

[nlocascio]

Thanks. Passenger side had to lift the carpet and gently tenderize the drive shaft tunnel with a hammer . Only reason is on the old seat, those two mounting points are not connected back to front, on the new one the is metal connecting from front to back, hangs up a bit and there are wiring harness to clear. On the new seat passenger side, there are four load sensors for the passenger airbag that are not on the 2002, and the heads of those bolts stuck down a bit, so a little grinding and that was fixed. Driver's side really didn't need much tenderizing to fit. One last thing, stupid Jeep engineer idea, there's is one mounting stud in the Jeep for the seat in the back, only one with a nut, well on the 02 there is a thick washer welded in as a spacer on the floor. One the new seats this was welded on to the seat frame. Again, a little more grinding on the new seat frame fixed that. As far as electrical, I was worried as the new seats have a CAN bus connection!!! But thankfully after tracing out the wires and testing, seems that is only for memory seat function and if you supply 12v the seat functions normally for adjusting. Also both seats have active headrest that have two wires running up to them that are not used on my Jeep and the passenger seatbelt buckle had two additional wires for a tensioner in case of collision which my Jeep doesn't have either. Thankfully the new seats came with cut off wire harness from the donor vehicle. Was able to take apart the connector and remove the wires I didn't need and I sliced into the Jeep harness. I only hooked up power and the seatbelt switch. I did not attempt to figure out the heated seats, don't need them here. The new driver seat is power adjust for forward and back and up and down for front and rear independent and has a lever on the side for lumbar. Passenger side is just adjust back and forth, no height adjust, but is a fold flat seat.