Comfort Heated Seat Repair Guide

[cgharibo]

My 1991 7A driver heated seat stopped heating. The fuse and relay are fine.

What’s the easiest way to address the heating element? Repair or replace?

Is there a pdf or a weblink to a guide?

Thank you.

[K Simmonds]

The elements don't tend to break, however the wiring does get damaged, normally it's the bit of cable that links the back to the base close to the pivot point of the seat, check this as well the wires going to the plugs on the underside of the seat.

Assuming you don't find a problem with the wiring you can check the elements themselves for continuity with a multimeter, they will naturally show show some resistance otherwise they wouldn't get warm but if the circuit is broken you'll get a reading of 0.L.

[cgharibo]

Sure. Will do. This sounds like something I can address with the seat in the car.

[K Simmonds]

You might be able to see the cable sheathing that contains the two wires between the seat base and back without removing the trim covers, but I'm not sure you'll be to do anything with them without removing the pivot trim... This is held in place by three quite hard to spot plastic rivets that push through the panel to release it, these invariably end up under the seat and are hard to find.

You'll probably end up having to take the seat out to find them as well check the wiring on the underside and the plug itself for corrosion on the pins...

It's really easy to pop a seat out, remove the tunnel runner trim and the outer runner stop, next undo the the 6mm Allen head bolt with a 10mm nut at the front the center runner. Then simply slide the seat back until free, tilt the whole assembly back to disconnect the plug for the heater and it can then be removed from the car, it helps if you put the seat back forward as if you were letting a passenger get in the back or adjust it so it's tilted as far forward as it will go.