No Heat From Heated Seat: FIX!! ( thanks Jimbo7 )
 

On New Year's eve I was bored and decided to take advantage of the 60 degree weather. I cleaned out and detailed the interior and trunk. I also decided to try and fix the driver's heated seat that's been broke for over a year. After a little research, it seemed like it would either be fairly easy and cost nothing, or really hard and expensive. Luckily it was the former. I put off fixing the seat because I'm lazy and was afraid I'd ruin my seat and have to sit on a lawn chair. From pulling out the seat to putting it back in took a little over an hour. I've gone so long without heated seats I forgot what it felt like. Here's a few pics to show what I did.

After pulling out the seat, removing the left side lever, knob and trim; I unclipped the cover that's held on by those white plastic things on the front and sides. The I slowly peeled the cover back by wedging my hand inside so I wouldn't ruin the red fuzzy stuff that was holding it on to the black velcro things. Be careful cus those are just glued to the foam base. On the bottom of the cover there's a label with the part number sewn to the cover. If my heating element was really screwed up I'd have to either buy a new aftermarket one for a whole new leather cover!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...7/IMG_3967.jpg

If you're looking at the seat, there's a white piece of rectangular fabric at the bottom right corner (in the above pic it's covered with black duct tape). That's where the thermal resistor and element wires all connect. Carefully peel it back to expose it. That blackish bare wire on the top is the bad wire that causes most of the problems with heated seats. You can see that it must've shorted out and singed the foam a little. Some people have had their seats catch on fire!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...7/IMG_3958.jpg

Next you have to remove the white fabric crap to separate the various wires. The round black thing is the thermal resistor. It shuts your seat off when it gets to a certain temp. Sometime those go bad too.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...7/IMG_3959.jpg

There about half a dozen wires in there that are spliced together using some sort of tape or shrink wrap. All along the bottom and the back of the seat there's a long thin bare wire that's putting out all the heat. It looks like thinner de-soldering braid but more fragile. What really pissed me off is how they're connected together. Who's bright idea was it to take a thin bare braided wire and tape it to a thin insulated wire? I foresee a 100% failure rate over the life of the vehicle with this method. How cheap of them.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...7/IMG_3961.jpg

After cutting out the bad section of wire and carefully pulling out some good wire from the cover, I soldered a piece of heavier gauge wire to splice it. Then I shrink-wrapped it to protect the connection.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...7/IMG_3963.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...7/IMG_3964.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...7/IMG_3965.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...7/IMG_3966.jpg

Here's what it looks like with the new section spliced in
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...7/IMG_3966.jpg

Seat all back together (not sure why it looks like it's lop-sided. looks fine in the car)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...7/IMG_3973.jpg

I was gonna spray some 3m glue on the white fabric wire cover so it looked factory, but I couldn't find the can. I used the next best thing.....duct tape.

Make sure you connected all your connectors. I almost cried after I hit the switch and it didn't work. Plugged in the heater connector and it works like new! My buns are nice and toasty again.


Here is the link to the original post.

Wanna know what the inside of your seat looks like? - Monte Carlo Forum - Monte Carlo Enthusiast Forums

I have this same problem with my drivers side seat, but being disabled, I am not able to do the work myself, wondering if you checked with a chevy dealer about what they would charge to do this????

Yeah im just a lazy fat guy so I wont do this I wanna know how much that would cost to do

might as well just delete this writeup unless the op uploads his pictures again

is there anyway to get the pictures back up? I think I may have found the problem with mine I can see one burnt hole on the outside of my leather cover.

i tore mine apart and found no burnt wires... very dissapointed

I had access to a IR camera... so I took a shot of my seat. Can YOU see where the next high resistance problem will occur? :)

No good without the pics

depending on the year the price varies for my 2001 the parts alone i was quoted for 1800 dollars only because the seats and heaters are one piece

Fixed heated seat
 

Thanks everyone, great thread. Was told that my heated seat couldn't be repaired by the dealer, that the only fix was a new seat! I read this thread, bought a soldering iron, some 18 gauge wire and some heat shrink. I lifted the leather on back of the seat as instructed and just like the pictures I saw, there was the burn mark and the break in the wire. Fixed that, the soldering was the hardest part to me. I didn't want to pull the leather up too much so I was a little challenged. I now have a heated drivers seat again, just in time for the single digits and yes zero! :thumbsup: Took me a couple of hrs. but well worth it. I couldn't believe the wiring set up. :wtf: no wonder it failed. And yes, there was a small burn hole in the leather also. .