How many times have we heard (and I have said) why doesn't this car have cooled seats. Sounds like a great idea, but this is a luxury item neglected on our cars. When i cross shopped the RL against the ES, that was a stike against the RL. There is an interesting thread on Club Lexus that sayes seat coolers are not the luxury item you would think. Some talk about the noise, others say that it is ineffective and they can't feel the difference whether it is on or off. One person made the comment that if there were an option to be paid for, he wouldn't do it.

After reading these comments (and with the end of summer) its easier to accept my car without this lux feature. If i were buying my car today, and cooled seats (actually just ventilated seats) were a mere $300 option, i don't know that i would spend it. Such resignation only makes me feel better about my ultimate purchase.

 

There are 2 kinds of "ventilated" seats...ventilated and cooled. Ventilated seats (like I think is available on the ES) is just that, ventilated with a fan. Cooled seats have a little cooling unit that actually cools the air being blown up the seat (separate from the HVAC system).

The Infiniti M has "cooled" seats. I think it's a Peltier cooling device and fan setup. You can hear the fan but it is not loud or noisy by any means (the HVAC fan on low drowns out the seat fan), and it really is "cool" to a point that your bottom feels funny.

The good thing is that the cooled seats are cooled...3 settings for cooling, starts feeling funny in about a minute. The bad thing is that the seat heaters also use the peltier device and fan, which sucks compared to heat pads. It has to warm the seat past your butt temp before you actually feel heating, which is like 3 minutes on a cool day, 5 or more on a cold day and by then the HVAC is already warm enough. But it's a nice tradeoff for the REAL cooled seats.

 

Yeah the RL just uses ventilated seats which do not do much when you would want to use them the most. They are great for medium temp days when you may be going for a long drive but for 28C+ temp days they are borderline useless unless you can magically get the air under the seat to be a hell of a lot cooler than the rest of the car.

That is cool that the M uses active cooled seats and that is IMO the only way things should be.

Now lets start the obligatory replies where people go on and on why Canada has RLs with cooled seats but the U.S. doesn't and ignore the car costs 70k here, and with a par dollar you can clearly see how much more it is now. Also, make assumptions that every Canadian lives in an igloo (and do this without ever having left your home state so be ignorant of anything outside of your country) and ignore the majority of the population lives in southern Ontario/Quebec (which is lower than many US states and not much diff than mid U.S area) where it gets bloody hot during the summer and even early fall a lot of the time. Hell, today is supposed to hit 31C.

 

i can assure you that the seat coolers in current cadillacs are absolutely AWESOME!!!! coming from florida, i never once used the heated seats in my tsx, but now that i drive caddys all day long in charlotte, the cooled seats are a much welcomed luxury option. cold air directly to your rump (lol) - once you have it, you'll never go back

 

I'm sure if someone wanted to, they could pick up one of those Peltier devices and rig up their own cooled seats...granted they have perforated leather.

if i had the urge, I would mod the coolers in the M with a bigger cooler so you can cool a bottle of beer between your legs while driving.

http://www.ferrotec.com/products/the...FQenIwodxmYyMg

 

That would be an interesting mod, mrdeeno, though probably more difficult than swapping a USDM-spec seat for a CDM-spec ventilated seat.

Speaking of swapping, I wonder whether Qatar was successful in finding the parts necessary for the swap?

 

I can also attest that the cooled seats from my former ride, a Lincoln LS V-8, were very effective. The feeling was akin to sitting on a cool/cold metal chair (not hardness, but the temperature effect). I actually appreciated them for the days when heating was called for as well because they pushed the warmed air up throught the perforations giving an added measure of comfort.

If I could add it to my RL, I'd do it.

 

Actually, I think the ES has cooled seats, as I feel the cold at the bottom and the back (as the outside temp is hotter) with NO AC on. The salesman said it's ventilated?

 

How do the ventilated seats work with a couple of bean burritos from Taco Bell?

 

I'm pretty sure they are only ventilated and not cooled.

Even though it may not be actively cooled, it still has a cooling effect because it is circulating air.

The website also points out (for the ES and GS) that they are only 'ventilated', and they never mention cooled until you step up to the LS which has 'air conditioned' seats.

 

Quicker dispersion of noxious fumes punishes passengers more quickly.

 

Que bueno!

 

I could definitely use cooled/air conditioned seats in SoCal during summer. Disappointed with Acura in that department.

 

They could have at least stuck a fan under there for "ventilated" seats. How much extra would that have cost them?

 

What I don't get is why they are available in Canada but not the US - generally - isn't it WARMER the farther south you are??? Isn't that why birds fly south in the winter???

 

I don't think it would add much cost at all for "ventilated" seats. From an engineering point of view, it's already been engineered since it's already available in Canadia, so there's no extra cost like a V8 engine or RWD platform, and the cost of parts on a volume scale is probably less than $200 for components and installation per car. And it's a luxury item, not anything safety related or anything that has to pass anykind of certification or anything.

I don't see any logic or reason for not offering it in the U.S., but then again I don't see a lot of logic in what Honda/Acura has been doing lately either, unless they're saving it for a MMY refresh.

 

The same reason that they get headlight washers and we don't. Like it doesn't snow in the USA?