Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Dracoro]

OK, not too bothered about this, certainly not going to spend money on it but would be good to know what to check.

The drivers heated seat does not work. The dial works (i.e. the light comes on etc.

Is there anything I can check, connectors to the seats? Fuses/relays etc.

[damon80]

More than likely the heater pad has gone.  Tends to be drivers side that goes first, due to that seat being used the most.

[al brown]

Cloth are not to hard to replace but leather is more or less a non-starter as the pad is part of the seat.

[Dracoro]

Are there any connectors under/in the seat that I can check (in case it's just got disconnected...).

Fuse/Relays worth checking?

[Dracoro]

bttt

[I_want_an_Omega]

If its an Elite with cloth then you have the same problem as with leather in that the heater element is actually sewn into the seat fabric.

I have repaired a few of these but its very very time consuming, the car will be off the road whilst you do the repair and you need to be good with electrics and a soldering iron. You also need to have somewhere to work - sounds obvious, but a seat is big & heavy!

Also the bolts fixing the seat to the floor seem to have fragile heads so its worth having some spares at hand, Elites have longer screws - so beware that too.

There are no relays.

On the plus side, you can put "non Elite" heater pad under the Elite seat covers, but these are now NLS (no longer listed by Vauxhall), so the only real source is a breakers & remove the seat from a donor car and strip it down.

FYI, the resistance reading of a seat is about 5 ohms, split about 50/50 between base and rear. Elite seats are polarity sensitive (brown is negative), so beware that.

There is a relay within an Elite seat base (but not on non Elite/leather), as they use a separate thermostat to control that relay, wheras the seats with pads use an integral thermostat & have no relay. A working Elite seat will only heat up with power applied the correct way round, wheras the ones with pads will heat up with either polarity. 

Sorry to sound gloomy, it can be done (Ive done it), but not for the faint hearted.

Finally BEWARE the yellow connectors, they are for the side airbags, are rather delicate. If you turn the ignition on with a side airbag disconnected you will trigger the airbag warning light & it wont go off until a) the fault is resolved, b) the airbag light is reset via the diagnostic port.

HTH ....... Rob

[Dracoro]

Thanks.

It a leather Elite.

Where do I find the connector to the seat?

Too much work/hassle to do a full fix if they've had it, but would like to check just in case it's been disconnected for some reason or the inbuilt thermostat isn't working/connected etc.

[Andy B]

......
Where do I find the connector to the seat?
 ........

It's on the outside of the seat, under the trim that has the memory functions & the up/down and front/back ...... you can't miss it!    The connector contains all the connection for the seat.

[I_want_an_Omega]

......
Where do I find the connector to the seat?
 ........

It's on the outside of the seat, under the trim that has the memory functions & the up/down and front/back ...... you can't miss it!    The connector contains all the connection for the seat.

The yellow airbag connector is a small separate one underneath this main one which also has the electrical supply and the seatbelt pre-tensioner. On Elites there is a separate multipin connector for the seat memory gubbins.

To check the supply is getting to the heated seat (black and black/red wire IIRC), then you could disconnect the battery and undo the whole connector, then reassemble the airbag (yellow) and seat belt pre-tensioner (2 wire connector with thin wires), reconnect the battery - you will then be able to check that the supply is coming from the heated seat switch to the seat by putting a meter on the brown & black/red wires - it should show 12v when the seat is switched on.

Then disconnect the battery and reassemble befor connecting the battery again.

IIRC you need to the the seat right back to get the trim panel off easily and the connector block will slide off.

HTH