HOW TO: Fix your heated seat

I found the culprit after looking carefully at the vacation pictures. Fuses #6, #13, #16, and #17 are all related to the seat heaters. Sure enough, #17, a 15A fuse from the battery to the Seat Heater Relay had blown. Two others had singed teeth but still were able to let the current flow.

Where did you find all of these fuses ? I've look in the vacation pics with no sucess ..

The only one I've found is in the fuse box inside the car. A 15A fuse related to the heated seat.

Nice write-up and not sure how I missed this until now.

My ass has never been so cold that I would attempt this on my own (and I live in Minnesota)...but I have cloth and that does not get anywhere as cold as leather.

Good job!

Bump, this is the prime time for me to do it before mother nature puts her winter jacket on again.

Same here.

Ok... I had gotten totally soaked while standing out in torrential rain and had to get back in my car. Seat got SOAKED and stayed wet for days. Now my butt element doesn't work, but the element on my lower back does still.

Did I fry something on the seat only? I just noticed there is a small bump under the cloth near the crease where the seat meets the back rest.

Possible it's just fuses? Which fuses do I check? Ones under hood, by battery?

My heater is fried.. light on the switch goes on, fuse is ok. I suspect the loop is broken.

What's the word on a reliable fix so it never happens again - do I try a third party element or just find the loop and solder it back together?

Thanks...

Great write up, really helpful having pics while changing my seat element.

Thanks!!!

Good writeup and good info from other posters as well. I finally got around to dealing with this. I first pulled the heater element cloth out the back with the seat still in the car. All of the wires at the back of the butt element were still connected.

Then I figured maybe mine weakened and burned through somewhere, so I took the seat out of the car, disassembled it a good bit and removed enough of the hog rings to look at the whole element. I couldn't find any evidence of a burned out section, but my multimeter didn't show continuity between the two ends of the loop so it must be broken somewhere in there. Looks like I'll be ordering a replacement butt element, and some hog ring pliers. I put the seat back in the car without the hog rings secured just so I can drive it in the mean time. It's not too bad of a job, but I was hoping it was one of the more common failure modes that was easier to ID and fix without buying a new element. Oh well.

I have an 05 Limited with some seat heater issues. Only the back heater works on the driver side and only the butt on the passenger. I'm gonna check for any fuse problems, but this walkthrough looks a little involved for my current schedule.

Thanks for the walkthrough though! You saved me trying it on my own with no idea what I was doing!

If my indicator light is broken will that make my seat heater not work

Note only my drivers side indicator light is out and only my passenger seat heater works

^^^ Probably. Assuming you have a 4th gen (you should put your car info in your profile if you're going to ask for help) the switch in the center console sends a lower voltage output to the heater element. If it's not lighting up, it's probably dead on that side and not sending any voltage to the heater. The "vacation pix" have a couple of pages about the seat heater system and how to use a multimeter to diagnose if the switch is good or not.

The good news is, it's easier, faster, and cheaper to replace the switch unit than it is to replace a broken heater element. The bad news is, the element may also be broken and need replacing. You can't know that until you know whether the switch is outputting voltage or not.

This is an excellent write up.

I just noticed that my bottom warmer doesn't seem to be working. Back warmer is working. Passenger's back and bottom warmer are working fine.

I would recommend people to read the thread completely to include other people's experience on fixing the bottom element without removing the entire thing.

Question to people who fixed the bottom element by pulling it from the back of the seat: Was it problematic to re-insert the element back to the seat?

This confuses me as my back warmer works but my butt warmer does not...

I just pulled mine apart (the shortened method) and found that all the wires were connected as well:confused:

Did anybody experience the same issue with this post?

I think I might be in the same situation as markbrotens.

Fixed today. S..., it was harder than I'd expected and took ~4-4.5 hours. If someone asked me for how much I'm ready to do it again I would say that not less than US$ 150.

After all of this I've thought "do I really needed it?" coz I was passing 5 winters without bottom heater, only with back. For why I did it now - I don't know Anyway, everything is working now.

I replaced my butt element a couple of weeks ago. I had the part for almost a year, but didn't want to replace it during the warm weather so as to not put unnecessary butt cycles on the element and have it break any sooner. Upon removal it was obvious that the wire had burned through where the metal bar from the seat cover pinches into it. I used a new factory element, but I put some pieces of thick plastic tubing over the bars in the seat cover, to hopefully distribute the force over a wider area so it doesn't pinch the heater wire as badly. Who knows if it will do any good in the long run. The broken element that I removed will be repaired by soldering in some new thicker wire, so I'll have a spare ready to go if/when it fails again.

The whole process took a little over 4 hours, including the extra time spent cleaning and conditioning the leather while I was at it. It's nice to have the butt warmer working, however to my chagrin, the lower back element still doesn't work. Not sure if I care enough to figure that out. The butt heater is the important one and it doesn't get that cold here anyway.

I wonder if the back heater can be swapped for a full size butt heater...

Gotta redo my butt heater again as it seems to have failed again.

Can someone people write

Up how to replace the upper seat heater I can't figure out now to get the plastic backing off the leather seat.

my upper one is broken

I didn't even know I had one until I got into my mothers 08 outback, lol.

I just purchased mine a month ago

Can someone people write

Up how to replace the upper seat heater I can't figure out now to get the plastic backing off the leather seat.

there are three clips at the top, two clips on the sides and hooks at the bottom.

there are three clips at the top, two clips on the sides and hooks at the bottom.

It feels like im having to use more force then necessary to remove the backing, i have leather not sure it that makes a huge difference.