my driver side heated seat is not working right now do you guys think it may be the same problem. heating element?

 

only drivers side is.

 

its an issue with the occupant detection sensor in the seat- the one that prevents right side airbag from operating if it thinks it might kill your buddy leaned against the window or layed way back in the seat

 

Either that or a fuse. More likely the element. Neither of mine worked when I bought the car but the lights on the buttons would still light up. My drivers side seat had burnt up wires in the element when I took it apart.

 

I had to repair my seat heater a second time because the wire became disconnected from my original repair job. I made a video of the repair this time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1Ftv3hnDXk
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^^ that is a big help for the not so mechanically inclined! I posted a question if you ever had to repair the back, mine's out...

 

so this would be the same with CL? i dont know why my passenger side doesnt work... light comes on and everything too

 

Because the element is probably open. The indicator light will still come on.

 

Did you every tackle the seat back heater? I'm hoping I can do this one with the seat in-car...

 

Can you help me with mine too plzzz .. dinner on me

 

Doesn't the driver's side have heated back too? IIRC when I use mine I feel it up on my back too. I'm wondering now, since the OP's done this..to mod the passenger side to have heated back too ahahhaha

 

Great help with the video and everything!
Just need to get my back heater working now

 

Thanks for the DIY for the seat bottom.

I also tried to fix the seat back portion and since lots of people are asking about it here's some diagrams.
Sorry I forgot to take pictures and I can't go back in there again. (Will tell you why in a bit)

NOTE: The back portion of the passenger side is heated only on the 1999 TL, 2000 - 2003 models don't have back heaters on the passenger side.

Okay, so to get the leather off you'll need to pull off the storage pocket on the back of the seat. (see image) Just reach around the bottom and pull it striaght out slowly. You will break the clips holding it together (circled red in image), but if your careful you should be able to take them out rotate them and resue them once more. Then push down and remove the storage pocket.



Then you'll see the clips holding the leather together. (see image, labeled A). Just push them off to release the leather (no hog pins ).



Then go to the front, reach under the seat back where it meets the bottom seat and pull the leather around. If you working on the drivers side and you have that lumbar support knob, service manual says there's a clip to remove to get it off. I couldn't get to it so I just pushed the leather up and tried to work under the leather. If you need more room and can't get the knob out remove the hog clip and fold the leather over to that side. (see below)

My burnt wire was near the bottom on the right side near the centre console, so I didn't need to lift the leather much.

If your wire got burnt in the crease about 1/4 the way down from the top or you want to remove more of the leather you'll need to remove the hog clips to get to that. (Labeled A in the image)



Go back to the back and you'll see a wavy heavy wire that goes across, this is where the hog clips are, there are three that hold the leather and three that hold the seat to the wavy wire. Take out the ones that hold the leather. Then you need to remove the head restraint and the guides.
Just reach up in to the top of the seat and squeeze the clips, they are facing front and back relative to the vehicle. Make sure you put them back correctly (the button is closer to the door)



Then fold the leather over the top and push it to the side. You should be able to see the entire heated seat pad now.

Now you just have to find the burn/break and solder it together.

Also, on my TL none of the wires were broken but there were brown burn spots. I stripped some of the insulation off the wire and it looks like the wire has over heated, some of it was blueish in color, so I just cut out what didn't look good and replaced the wire.

I would test it before you put it back, because you'll need to buy new clips for the storage pocket if you need to pop it off again.

Then you just gotta put everything back:
Fold leather back on
Fasten Hog Pins
Put back head restraint guides
Clip leather back on
Rotate clips that hold the storage pocket so they will work
Put back storage pocket

Enjoy your nice warm bum and back

Any questions post or PM me.

 

Edit: If you broke the clips beyond reuse for the back seat storage pocket, the part number is: 91566-SP0-003

 

Thanks a million! You've given me that nudge & confidence to get me to finally fix my seatback.

 

Some more info that might help you:

If your back seat heater doesn't work, the bottom one most likely won't either, they are connected in series, aka power flows from the switch to the bottom one and then to the back one and to ground.

If you have a multimeter you can check for continuity on the heated seat pad harness. There's one harness with three prongs and one with two prongs (the colors are different for each production of heated seat pad so it's hard to say what color they are). First check the two prong connector (on the female side), it should have continuity, if it doesn't you have a problem in the back seat heater pad (fix this first, or temporarily jumper them together (on the male side)). Make sure the two prong connector is connected or jumpered and check the three prong connector, it should have continuity across all the prongs, assuming the seat temperature is below 20C (68F), if you live somewhere where it's hot right now, there may only be continuity across the outside two, which is okay.

When fixing the wires, make sure it's not discolored when you strip it, if it's discolored it's no good, you'll have to remove some more. I had a wire that was bluish and didn't work after I soldered it, had to go back and remove more of the overheated wire. It's normal copper wire, so it should be shiny and yellowish-gold.

Also, tip on not destroying the clips, grab the back seat storage pocket and push it to the right then to the left, with some luck the clips might pop off the bracket and come off unharmed.

Looks like it wrote a story again
Any questions let me know.

P.S. Sorry forgot to take photos...again

 

Great tip on preserving the clips! I'd been considering how to do this, after replacing a clip on the passenger seat.

Driver's seat works great, and I used it the other day, when it went down to 35˚F [in May!] However, the seat back isn't, so that's the next big look-see. I thought I'd check the connection first [under the seat?] before examining the heater pad.

Any chance the cushions are interchangeable between driver and passenger?

 

Only my seatback element is out as well; butt works fine My first question too is whether the harness is accessible from under the seat or through the seatback opening.

 

Da.
Benson's link appears to show the connector under the seat.
http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g1...ng/tl_seat.png

I'm going to spend some serious time on it, along with a full set of photos,
after my dash bulbs come in, and the dash is completely reassembled.
If I take apart another area before restoring the previous, before you know it,
I'd be driving around in a bare chassis.

 

So I got a hold of the service manual and checked the schematic and, if you can believe the schematic drawing, a broken seat-back element would allow the seat-bottom heater to work on HIGH, but not on LOW.

As I always flip the switch to HIGH, I have no idea whether LOW actually works - I'll throw a temperature probe on the seat tonight.

 

If you unbolt the seat and just tilt it back and lay it on the back seat you can access the harness and leave it plugged in. My harness on the drivers side had a black and yellow wire. Just check for continuity if it doesn't flow it's no good.

The seat back pads for each side are different because the wire going to the harness always runs on the side closer to the middle.

 

Harness is under the seat, but if you want to probe the wires with a needle, you can find them running along the under the seat on the centre console side, you should be able to see them from the back with out disassembling anything.

Also, I went to look at the schematic again and your right about the HIGH setting allowing the pads to run independently. They must be using the connected in series for the LOW setting to increase the resistance and lessen the heat. It also looks like there is no breaker or thermostat when it's running on LOW... that might be why the pads burn out...

 

Exactly how it works
I tried to get a temperature reading tonight on LOW, but the temp of my car seats were both 85F to start with - I didn't see a temp change on either one. I need another 40 degree morning!

 

Did you check on High... Mine never seems to run when its was parked in the sun.
Happened when I was probing the harness, I was working in the sun and I didn't get continuity on one of the pins until the black leather cooled down. Says in the schematic that the breaker is only on under 86F, but then LOW doesn't use the breaker

 

Fixed mine today, just in time for summer! Benson, I will email you the pics. The hardest part was getting the hog rings back on (my burnt wire was at the crease). I got on one no problem, but couldn't do the remaining two; it would have helped to have another person pressing against the seatback. In the end, I used two heavy duty zip-ties; worked like a charm. I was also able to reuse the clips for the seatback; no damage when taking it off.
Also, there is no need to remove the headrest or the lumbar lever, the whole heating pad is accessible if you remove the 3 hog rings and just flip up the leather on one side.

 

Dam hog rings eh, good thing the zip ties can't be felt on the back side.

Oh and if your seat's leather was dry, and you got white smudge lines across the leather from bending it so much. McGuires Leather cleaner and conditioner workes great in taking them out and making my leather all black again.

PMed you my email, i'll try to get photos up asap

 

Here's some photos:
Thanks to Severin for taking them.

Back of the Seat, with hog pins


Back of the Seat, clips that hold on the leather


Burn wire on the seat back




Burnt Wire, Fixed


Checking the Heat

Heat Went Up

 

Great pictures. How did you attache the new wire, are those crimp connectors? In spite of what others have said it seems that crimps would be stronger than solder.

I replaced the passenger seat pad with an aftermarket. My brother designed a simple circuit to integrate it with the existing controls. We did that because soldering seemed like a flaky and temporary fix. Total it cost maybe $120 or so, a lot better than taking to the dealer and probably more permanent.

For the driver's side the back works but the butt doesn't. That doesn't really bother me. The reason I fixed the passenger was for my wife. But now we're thinking about selling her car and giving her mine so I'm thinking I need to get the butt heat working too. For that one I'm leaning toward this $3 method.

 

Do you have details of the circuit your brother came up with? I'd be interested.
Soldering the connections is better than crimping. More reliable.

 

I soldered a splice of CAT5E (what I had) and used some shrink tube to cover the connection.

You'll find that LOW temp will NOT work at all on the drivers seat and HIGH will warm your BACK only. Unfortunately, changing/repairing the butt heater requires you to remove the seat from the car (the seatback is way easier to do).

The thing that has me leery about using an aftermarket pad is that, as Benson and I have determined, when on HIGH the current is sunk evenly between the seat and seat back heaters. I assume that they are resistance matched; if not, one would get a lot hotter than the other leading to more burn-out issues. The stock ones are matched so this doesn't happen.

 

Solder is much stronger, than crimps. I just put electrical tape over my solder points. The wire in Severin's fix seems a bit short. It should be okay for the seat back, there's not so much pressure there. But if your doing the seat bottoms I would use a longer wire to leave more room for the wire to flex when you sit on it.

Seems that the whole cause of the burnt wire is that metal rod. It must be holding more heat than the leather pad and causeing the wire the burn.

 

Does the $120 bucks include labor?

I live in Canada and the heated seat pads are about $80 bucks each from Acura. We get ripped off on car parts here. I was down in Vegas and I asked, they quoted me about $60 bucks each. So unless your price includes Labor, you can probably find Acura parts online for about the same price.

Another tip when you take out the drivers seat. Set the seat level up about half an inch so you can access the bolts holding on to the seat with a ratchet. Makes it much easier to take out the bolt.

 

i just saw a video clip on youtube, that how to fix a tl 3.2 heated seat.
here is the link see it if helps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1Ftv...os=HnxQJe11btc

 

FWIW, Cat5e wasn't such a great wire to use as a jumper. I ended up redoing the job with some 14 gauge; seatback heater works great!

And again, I did not bother with putting back the 3 hog rings where your shoulder blades are; just use zip ties instead! soooooo much easier.

 

good work guys, i'll need this in a couple days.

 

I'm very new to this but several of the threads I've read have me thinking that the drivers side has both seat and back heating pads while the passenger side is just a seat pad.

Also, I'm assuming that if 1 pad goes bad in the drivers side, neither will work.

Can someone confirm this?

 

Year model?

 

Mine is an '01 TL but for the benifit of others, and for my own interest, could you clarify any difference among years and models?

 

If you have side airbags on the seats, then the passenger side does not have a top/back heater, due to confict with the occupancy sensor. I think it's 2001 and up, I'm not sure I have a 99.

If one of the pads is burnt out, the other pad will heat if you set it on high but nothing will work on the low setting. This is because on the high setting the pads run in parellel, thus more current flow/less resistance, on the low setting the pads run in series, thus less current flow/more resistance. So to test which one is bad use the HIGH setting.

 

I've been just about to do my driver's seat-back. Maybe Monday!

I'm thinking of going all-out, and throwing the seat on the kitchen table for surgery.