Driver and passenger seat swap on a 1996 960? YES, it will work!

It’s not easy, but worked. I was trying to find a replacement driver’s seat for my 1996 960 for a while. It proved to be very hard (much easier to find a replacement seat for 850). So, I decided trying to swap it. The driver’s seat back cushion is worn and the motors do not work. I will take you 8 hours to get everything right.

Things that will work:
1. Seat tracks are the same.
2. The arrangement of the 3 motors is the same
3. Seat heaters the same
4. Control panel from the passenger side will fit on the driver’s side

Things that need modified:
1. The plastic thing that holds the control panel. Use the right one for the right. You will need to cut a rectangle hole to route the cables.
2. Control wires from the control panel to the motors will need to be cut and re-spliced to address the left-to-right swap.
3. The two safety pegs (pins) on the bottom of the tracks which goes to the holes on the floor will need to be cut flush to the track.
4. If both of your original seats are power without memory, you don’t need to do this. If you have a memory driver’s seat and non-memory passenger seat, you need to run a wire from the passenger side to the driver’s side. It’s the small orange or yellow wire which provides a 12V from the ignition to the seat controller.
5. All the normal left-to-right kind of things like: seat belt receiver, cover plates, etc.
6. Side impact airbag system (if you have them like me) will have to be disabled (just cut the plastic tubings going from the actuator to the seat).