Drivers Seat Wiring Harness

[Fireflite]

Greetings from sunny New Jersey,

I have a 2011 Rav4 base model V6 AWD. I'm quite happy with it except for one thing. The driver's seat is literally a pain in the behind...and the back, and the arms. It was fine on the test drive, but after an hour or two it was killing me.

I wasn't anticipating this problem, because I rented a Rav4 while on vacation in Utah and Colorado I loved it. I put 4000 miles on the thing in two weeks. Now I realize that was a pre-facelift model with a power driver's seat.

I had an upholstery shop add some padding in the low spots and an inflatable lumber support, but that was only a limited improvement. Back in days of old I could have simply bought an aftermarket or used seat and bolt it in, I'd just need to have bracket made up. Of course now we have all those airbags and such.

Then I got the idea to try installing a 2007 power seat. The mounts are identical, and all the switches are on the seat itself, so I hoped I would only need to have some wiring run for the power seat motors. I found an '07 seat online at an auto recycling yard for a good price, so I took a shot and bought it. I asked them to also give me the "pigtail" from body wiring harness (the last 6 inches or so of wiring with the plugs attached) so I would have all the correct plugs.

I hit snag when I tried doing a test fit of the seat. The 07 seat has three plugs, two of which are identical to plugs on the 2011 seat. The third plug is, I assume, for the seat motors. However, there is also a plug on the 2011 manual seat that does not appear on the 2007 seat. Now what on earth could that be for? It's a flat white plug with green, yellow and black wires.

Does anyone know what this does? I'll bet if I unplug it the check engine light will come on, but I don't have a scanner to read the code.

That brings up another question. Is there a diagram of the body wiring harness online anywhere? I could use one for both a 2007 and a 2011 model.

Thanks,

Tom

[anchorman]

Hi Tom and welcome to the club.

You have subscribed to the European owners club and of course you are welcome but the European RAV is often quite different to the US/Canadian spec. For that reason you might be better visiting RAV4 World and see what the guys there say. However, I can think of a couple of things that might be different. Some seats are fitted with heaters. Additionally, if you have ended up with a RHD passenger seat, you might find it has a seat base sensor. This tells the system if the seat is occupied and if not, will prevent the deployment of the airbags in an accident.

Be sure to have the Battery disconnected when installing the yellow plugs to help prevent the seat airbags from accidental deployment.

Cheers

Don

I hope this helps.