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HOW TO: Fix your heated seat


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This thread is a walkthrough for repairing your broken heated seat in your 05+ Legacy or Outbacks.

 

Start out by removing the 4 seat bolts

 

Once you have taken all 4 bolts out, lift the front of the seat up and you will see all these connectors for the power seat and airbags:

 

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Some plugs are tricky to get off, shown below is a particular airbag plug and how to get it off:

 

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This plugs outer shell slides back and then it unplugs:

 

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Next step is to take the seat out, be careful in this part as you can easily scratch your plastic.

 

Seat Removed:

 

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Once removed, set the seat on a flat work surface and on the back of the seat take the screws out:

 

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Picture of the right side plastic cover on the drivers side seat

You have to work around the seat belt plug, you can get it apart without taking the belt plug off:

 

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The left side is a bit more difficult:

 

In from the front there are plastic retaining screws:

 

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One plastic screw in the middle:

 

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Pic of the left side panel removed:

 

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Left front seat cover anchor, there are many of these all around holding the cover on:

 

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On the back of the seat, on the bottom there is a stretchy cord, remove:

 

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On the front of the seat there is a plastic screw holding the front cloth cover:

 

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Front seat anchor, roll it off:

 

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Right front anchor:

 

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Another sneaky one on the back right side:

 

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Now that you got most of the cloth retainers you can peal the cover off the front of the cushon and back, you will run into these below, they are called hog rings:

 

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These are what the hog rings look like, you will need to get a new ones and a hog ring tool as well:

 

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Edited by schwartzki
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There are metal rods going down both sides of the seat

 

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To remove, take the pliers and twist the hog rings off:

 

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At this point take out the 4 screws for the back of the seat and lay it down right behind the seat.

 

Then roll off the back seat retainer:

 

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Then unscrew this screw, which holds the cushion on the frame:

 

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This tricky little bugger hides, remove it:

 

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Covers off!!:

 

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My heater overlay got pulled forward, and pulled a wire out:

 

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Follow the seat heater wire to its harness mounting point, undo this tie(its reusable):

 

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We moved the wire up to tell which one it was easier:

 

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Harness:

 

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Edited by schwartzki
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Replacement part:

 

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Plug for the back heater, it operates on the chain relay, meaning if the butt circuit isn't complete, then the back wont work either:

 

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Close up of plug:

 

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Old broken one:

 

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Yay your all apart, now put the new one in and put it back together!

 

 

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Hog ring tool

You will need this tool to put the seat cloth back on the cushion:

 

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Take the ring and put it through the metal rod and clamp it to the metal rod in the cushon:

 

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The rest is just reverse of taking it apart!

 

Yay your heated seat is working again

 

Good Luck!

Edited by schwartzki
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........Plug for the back heater, it operates on the chain relay, meaning if the butt circuit isn't complete, then the back wont work either:...............

 

There's a seat back heater in the '05 Legacy????? I only feel heat on the seat bottom in my '05 wagon.

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I think I have the same problem on mine as well where the lower part has the wired pulled off.. man, that's no joke and a lot of work just to get the darn thing off.

 

I do have one question, for the hog rings, is there a technique to make sure that the bolsters are nice and tight if you are already splitting the pieces apart to get them off in the first place?

 

Thanks

Keefe
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The two metal rods that run down the seat keep the center part all nice, and if you lay the fabric correctly the plastic cover holders will hold down the rest, the only part that wasn't right on mine afterwords was on the front where the middle cushion sticks out past the side bolsters, the sides of that were funky but normalized after a few days. Just take your time.
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Wow, great walk through! I have been waiting a while for someone to post this exact thing, since my seat heater is shot. But now that it's posted...I'm kind of...disappointed. Because there's no way in hell I'm going to attempt this now.

 

So, in short: thank you for helping me not destroy my seat by trying this.

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