All leather (except MV6) and Elite cloth seats are made in the way Pete describes.
The problem occurs as the element is many (actually scores) of strands of resistance wires twisted together and threaded into foam padding. Over time & with wear some of these break increasing the electrical "strain" on the remaining strands which then get hot as you describe.
They will eventually burn through - leaving an open circuit and meaning the heater stops working totally. This can be fixed - but its very fiddly and means stripping the seat right down and mending the break. Problem is that the fault then occurs somewhere else in the seat.
I've put heater pads under my Elite seatcovers and problem solved.
I'd stress that this isn't an insignificant job, it's very time consuming and if the car is your daily driver then that can be a problem. The pads are also becoming more difficult to come by - so another option is to get hold of working seats from a breaker and strip the elements from them - but only from a CD or CDX with cloth as they have the pads fitted but all leather and Elite cloth dont.
All MV6 seats (cloth & leather) have pads fitted, but there is the added fun of a small minipad for the extender knee bolster.
As another poster has said, after market pads are available and these are quite a viable option as well as being good value compared to the cost of the Vx pads ..............
HTH
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Topic: Heated Seats (Read 1069 times)