Chojun

Hey Guys,

I just did the repair on my broken passenger-side seat heater and had a question about them. The service manual has like ZERO info on the seat heaters. From the looks of it on the passenger side the seat cushion is the only thing heated, and the back of that seat is fitted with the OPDS sensors and no heater. Is this correct?

On the driver's side I can only feel the back heat up. Does the seat cushion heat up as well? The repair for the passenger side was a 6/10 PITA factor and I have like 2% confidence in my fix lol (just buy a new heater pad if you're going to DIY this instead of trying to solder wires back together is my advice) so I don't want to go through the trouble of fixing the driver's side if only the back warms up.

Thanks everyone.

frankjnjr

Correct, only the passenger side seat cushion is heated. The driver's seat cushion, and back rest, are both heated, so there must be an issue with the cushion..

SuperGreg

The service manual does have some info on the heaters, including a circuit diagram. IIRC, for the driver's side, the "high" setting powers both heaters in parallel, and the "low" settings powers them in series (more resistance, less current). If nothing gets hot on the Low setting, one of the heaters is burned out for sure.

DamOTclese

The design of the seat heaters is not very good, the likely reason is that the dealer wants you to have to keep returning the vehicle for seat heating repairs every couple of years.

MikeekiM

As I recall, there is no easy way to replace the heating elements when they go bad...

My driver's seat heating elements went bad within my extended warranty (thank goodness it wasn't my passenger seat, because I drive alone most of the time and I don't know if I would have found out that they were defective until it was too late to be covered under my extended warranty).

In any case, the service manager was kind enough to replace both since I was under warranty and he said that the elements do go bad, so why not get that one replaced with a fresh new one at the some time. I didn't argue!

They sent both seats out to a local leather upholstery business to have the seats unstitched, and then restitched (after the element was installed, of course). Seemed like a large PITA. I can't imagine that was inexpensive...

And as others have stated, the passenger seat is only heated in the bottom cushion, the driver's side is both the bottom cushion and the lower back lumbar area. There are no heating elements in the back seat at all.

Darksyne

This is so far the best youtube video I've found for 2nd Gen TL heated seat removal and repair. Yeah it's taken on an old camera but it's really descriptive.