Heated Seats don't get hot

[cj_allen]

I have an '06 Lariat w/ the heated leather seats. The button on the side of the seats lights up, but I don't notice any warmth coming from the seats. My wife's Tahoe's seats get down right HOT when turned on. Anybody have any tips for trouble shooting them?

[smokersteve]

Its not a constant system. It will fluctuate. for my truck it will get hot at the start then go down then up and so on.

[Montana250]

There are quite a few of us that have this same problem. I have an '05 Lariat and it does the same thing (light with no heat). There are quite a few threads of guys having the same problem. There seems to be no 'universal' fix. Many have found that its a wire that connects the butt heater to the thigh heater that has fried. Allegedly it is very obvious that it has burned when you pull the seat cover back and can apparently see a black burn streak along the cushion. My wire looked fine so I am still troubleshooting what could be wrong, sorry to hear you are having this problem, but if you find a solution to it make sure you let us know... good luck.

[6.0DSLPWR]

Originally Posted by Montana250

There are quite a few of us that have this same problem. I have an '05 Lariat and it does the same thing (light with no heat). There are quite a few threads of guys having the same problem. There seems to be no 'universal' fix. Many have found that its a wire that connects the butt heater to the thigh heater that has fried. Allegedly it is very obvious that it has burned when you pull the seat cover back and can apparently see a black burn streak along the cushion. My wire looked fine so I am still troubleshooting what could be wrong, sorry to hear you are having this problem, but if you find a solution to it make sure you let us know... good luck.

Yep same problem here. Light is on but no heat from drivers seat. I pulled the seat out of the truck expecting to find a broken wire but couldn't see any obvious broken/burnt wires. So I tested continuity through the heat element with a multimeter and I have continuity which tells me there are no broken wires.

I priced out a heated seat element from ford yesterday and they want $160 for one.

I am thinking that when the weather warms up I will pull both seats out of the truck and take the heating element from the pass seat and put it in the drivers one since the pass seat works excellent. If the pass seat element work in the drivers seat then I know I need to buy a new element.

[cj_allen]

I pulled my driver seat out today and did not find the burnt wire that I expected to. I ended up pulling the entire heating element out and peeled the two sides apart where the black and yellow wire enter from the back of the seat. Long story short, the soldered connections were bad. I now have a new set of hog ring pliers and toasty buns. Now the wife is bugging me to do her side.

[Montana250]

Originally Posted by cj_allen

I pulled my driver seat out today and did not find the burnt wire that I expected to. I ended up pulling the entire heating element out and peeled the two sides apart where the black and yellow wire enter from the back of the seat. Long story short, the soldered connections were bad. I now have a new set of hog ring pliers and toasty buns. Now the wife is bugging me to do her side.

You should expand with your "long story" a little What soldered connections are you talking about??

[cj_allen]

At the back of the heating element, the two wires (black and yellow) are attached to the element that runs through the cotton pad. The black wire is soldered directly to the end of the "filiment". There are two (for lack of better term) boxes that have metal lids with a bi-metal fuse in them that regulates the on/off. Both boxes have two soldered connections on them. There is a short jumper wire that runs from one box to the other, the yellow attaches to one and the other end of the filiment to the last connection. It sounds confusing, but if you have it opened up, it's pretty staright forward. I wish I had taken pictures of it while I was in there, but I just wanted to get it taken care of and reinstalled. I won't get a chance to fix the passenger seat until Sunday or Monday. If it has the same problem and not the burnt wire, I'll post pictures of it.