Subaru seats into 2003 Caravelle

[TMWNN]

Hey all, long time lurker, 1st time poster.

I'm the happy owner of a 2003 Caravelle tdi.

Well happy except for the front seats which are usable but a bit tired.

So I have nice set of heated alcantara bucket seats that I swapped out of my Subaru Forester for some sportier seats from an STI wrx. These Forester seats would be perfect for my van.

Has anyone done this kind of swap? I did some googling but didn't find much.

[Sunny43.5]

As some one who used to do seat mods etc , I can offer some advice . You will if you want the job to be legal you will have the mod certified by an engineer . Now to save some money you if you are handy will need to bolt the seats onto the original bases the box sections on the floor . Now obviously the subi seats will not match bolting points so what we used to do was to bolt some 50mm wide 5 mm thick flat steel plates to the original bolt holes , then if the Subi mounts fit across those bolt them to that . You may be able to use part of the original box bases to bolt to but you need to maybe make some bridging plates like I suggested . Next any bolts you use should be high tensile of equivalent size to the originals . VERY important if the original seat belts were bolted to the old VW seats you may need to bolt them to the original bases as that's where the load would be placed in an accident . This may require asking some of the places that do mods as to what they would expect to see . Now if you want to not bother with certification use best practices to do the job but remember , if an accident were to occur and there was an injury to yourself or passenger as a result of the mod then the S^%$T will hit the fan big time , also RTA would put you off the road if they check the vehicle on the road .

[TMWNN]

Solid advice thanks mate I'll have a look at the bottom of the Suby seats and see if they looks like they will match up.

[Seano]

Probably cheaper/easier to get the existing seats redone. I've a pair of KAB seats with suspension bases that could be fitted to my T4 but the certification and upholstery work they need means that it won't happen and the KAB gear will inevitably head to landfill/recycling.

[Sunny43.5]

What are the KAB seats fitted to currently Seano ?