What your E46's seats cost new: standard and optional, from BMW's German price lists

Every used E46 seat set comes with a claim: "sport seats", "full leather", "electric with memory", "heated". Whether that is factory equipment, a rare option or a later swap is something the car's own price list can answer. BMW's German price lists from 2002 to 2006 show, model by model, which seat equipment came as standard and what each option cost. This article puts those lists side by side, body by body, so you can read a seat listing, or a used car, against what BMW actually sold.

The short version

The base seat was cloth, height-adjustable, and manual on most E46 Sedans and Tourings; the Coupé, Convertible and M3 had more as standard. ¹
Four seat options cover most claims: sport seats (code 481), electric lumbar support (488), seat heating (494) and electric adjustment with driver memory (459). ¹
Electric seats without memory were never an option in these lists. They appear only as standard equipment on the smaller Convertibles. ¹
Some models had seat options as standard: sport seats on the 325ti Compact, electric seats with memory on the 325Ci and 330Ci Coupé and the larger Convertibles. ¹
Leather included seat heating in these lists, and BMW's Alcantara upholstery came only with sport seats. ¹

What came as standard

The German lists mark each model with a symbol for standard, optional or part of an Edition. Read model by model, the standard seat equipment was: ¹

Body	Standard seat equipment
Sedan, Touring	Jacquard cloth; height adjustment for driver and passenger
Coupé	Tex 2000 cloth; electric seats with memory on the 325Ci and 330Ci, and on the 330Cd from 2003
Convertible	Tex 2000 cloth; electric seats on every model: without memory on the 318Ci, 320Ci and 320Cd (memory as a €300 upgrade), with memory on the 325Ci, 330Ci and 330Cd
Compact	flat-weave cloth; sport seats with seat-tilt adjustment on the 325ti
M3 Coupé and Convertible	M sport seats and electric seats with memory; the Convertible also standard seat heating

All from the German lists 2002 to 2006. ¹ So "electric memory seats" on a 330Ci Coupé is normal equipment; on a 318i Sedan it is an option worth asking about. Likewise, sport seats on a 325ti Compact are standard, while on a 316ti or 318ti they mean either the option or the M Sport package II. ¹

The M3 had one seat option no other E46 offered: an adjustable backrest width, code 490, at €620 and later €650, which included lumbar support. ¹

The four seat options and what they cost

Prices in euros including VAT, as the lists give them; "all" means the option was listed for every model of that body. ¹

Option	Code	Sedan and Touring	Coupé	Convertible	Compact
Sport seats, driver and passenger	481	all; €420 (Sedan 05/2002), €450, then €500 from 03/2003	all; €450, then €500	all; €500	standard on 325ti; others €450, then €500
Lumbar support, electric	488	all; €270	all; €270	all; €270	all; €270
Seat heating, driver and passenger	494	all; €320, then €340	all; €320, then €340	all; €340	all; €320, then €340
Electric adjustment with driver memory	459	all; €1,100 (Sedan 05/2002), €1,150, then €1,200	standard on 325Ci, 330Ci, 330Cd; others €1,150, then €1,200	standard on 325Ci, 330Ci, 330Cd; others: memory upgrade €300	all; €1,150, then €1,200

Three things stand out.

Electric seats meant memory. On the Sedan, Touring, Coupé and Compact the only electric-seat option in these lists is the one with memory for the driver, at well over €1,000. Electric adjustment without memory is never offered as an option; it appears only as standard equipment on the three smaller Convertibles. ¹

Sport seats and lumbar support were separate options. The September 2004 Touring list offers both on all eight models and states no exclusion between them, so in Germany in 2004 they could most likely be ordered together. That is an absence of a rule, not a stated rule. ¹ The parts catalogue supports it: the sport-seat backrest group lists the same lumbar parts as the basic seat. ³

Packages and Editions included some of these. Sport seats came with the M Sport package II and the Edition Sport, and on the Coupé also with the Clubsport; lumbar support with the Edition Exclusive; seat heating with the leather upholsteries and the Editions. ¹ A car with sport seats is therefore not proof of the M package, while a car built with the M package left the factory with sport seats.

Leather and the other upholsteries

The September 2004 Touring list prices the upholsteries as follows. ¹

Upholstery	Price	Condition in the list
Jacquard cloth	standard	—
Tex 2000 cloth	€100	not with the M Sport package II or the Editions
Scritto cloth/leather	€310	only with the Edition Lifestyle
Montana leather, with seat heating	€1,990	cheaper with the M Sport package II or Edition Sport
Nappa leather, with seat heating	€2,790	as above
BMW Individual Alcantara	€2,800 (€2,600 with the M package)	only with sport seats

So in 2004, buying leather meant buying heated seats too, and a car with Individual Alcantara should have sport seats. ¹

Added up, the seat options were a large part of an E46's price. On the September 2004 Touring list, a buyer who wanted Montana leather, sport seats and electric seats with memory paid €1,990, €500 and €1,200: €3,690 for the seats alone, on top of the car. A buyer who chose the M Sport package II instead got sport seats in Laser cloth and Alcantara as part of a €3,150 to €3,950 package. ¹ The other bodies offered their own cloths: Gran Turismo, Maglia and Bianco Nero in the 2002 lists, Finolino on the Coupé and Convertible from September 2004, California and Monza on the Compact, and Montana leather throughout. ¹

BMW's parts catalogue adds dates the price lists cannot: the flock cloth "Raute" and the Mosaico leather end in September 2001, while Chameleon leather and Scritto cloth/leather start in March 2003 on the Sedan and Touring. ³ An upholstery that is outside its window for the car in front of you is a sign that the seats came from another car.

Before 2002: what the scans show

There is no German Sedan, Touring or Coupé list between September 1998 and May 2002 in the set we hold. Two earlier lists exist only as poor scans, on which standard and optional cannot be told apart. ²

September 1998, Sedan: sport seats, electric lumbar, seat heating and electric seats with memory already appear as priced options, at DM 800, DM 500, DM 610 and DM 1,900; the standard cloth is a flock fabric. ²
September 2000, Convertible: the same four options are priced, and electric seats are listed among the standard equipment. ²

The research's own reading is that a pre-facelift Sedan or Touring from 2001 most likely had the same four seat options as the later cars, but that is an inference: only a 2000 or 2001 list would settle it. ²

Reading a used seat set or car against the lists

Know the body and model. The same equipment is standard on one model and a €1,200 option on the next. ¹
"Electric, no memory" on a Sedan, Touring, Coupé or Compact is unusual in Germany, where the lists offered only the memory version. Ask where the seats came from. ¹
Factory leather should be heated. In these lists, leather upholstery came with seat heating. ¹
Alcantara means sport seats. ¹
Check the upholstery's date window against the car's build date. ³
Sport seats alone don't prove the M package; they were a €500 option. ¹ How to tell a sport seat from a basic seat in photos is in "Sport, electric or ALPINA?".

Notes on the evidence

Confidence. The price lists are BMW's own documents, supplied privately by the owner and read for facts only; nothing is quoted. They are German lists and say nothing about other markets. The two oldest lists are poor scans and are graded LOW. Upholstery date windows come from one parts-catalogue mirror and one model per body.

Conflicts recorded. (1) A forum claim, about the earlier 3 Series, that lumbar support was not offered with sport seats does not hold for the 2004 E46 Touring list.

Not established. Standard and optional equipment in 1999 to 2001 for the Sedan, Touring and Coupé; prices and rules in markets other than Germany; whether every combination the lists do not exclude was actually built.

What comes next

Our E46 configurator is live: it shows which seats fit your car and links to sellers where we've found one.