Seat warmers? A learn me thread.

The only thing i miss about the e39 is the seats. They were heated on the butt and back, 3 settings from warm to nuclear holocaust. And super comfortable. 

The 98 neon i daily now has me hurting at the end of the day. I can fix how it fits me pretty easily and cheaply. Done it quite a few times before. Even have all the supplies already.

However, i want the automatic heating pad effect the bmw gave me. 

So, that means aftermarket parts. Theres a shocking number of, and price spread on, these things. And the advertising/documentation makes them all sound about the same. Except for how them nount. 

These seats are molded foam over a steel frame, with a cloth cover hog ring-ed into place.

So, where do i spend my money, and on what? Something inexpensive, durable, etc. Just one seat is all im doing at this time. An easy to mount/use button wouldnt piss me off, especially if it looks factory. 

I had one that sits in the seat and plugs into a cigarette lighter in my hand at the salvation army last week. Price was $3.99. 

I decided that I didn't have a car for it and that I need to stop buying junk that I am not immediately ready to use. I was thinking it would be nice for something like this, to take it apart and integrate into a factory seat.

Moss sells stuff for the BMC crowd. If heating you is the goal, heat kidneys, that heats the blood. If back relief is the goal, you know where it hurts. Should be stuff you can ransack at the pull-a-part.

I don’t know what kit they used but when I bought the fiat the dealer charged $200 to install a set in the front seats they had two settings, very comfortably warm and something may be on fire.  They did wonders for my back.  

Can you get a set of e39 seats used and just put them in your current car.

I haven't done the passenger side yet, but we put this on the driver's seat of my DD back in Oct. and I've loved it this past winter: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AKFISW2?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage

In reply to dean1484 :

Not without floorpan welding. Had that thought....

Katya4me said:

I haven't done the passenger side yet, but we put this on the driver's seat of my DD back in Oct. and I've loved it this past winter: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AKFISW2?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage

What I was going to say - there are multiple kits available to retrofit heaters into your existing seats.  If you're going to be modifying them already it seems like the way to go, rather than trying to make some other seats fit the car.

In reply to Katya4me :

So far fairly durable? Are the multiple settings actually different or is it more just low/high?

In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :

How about:

get e39 seat and heater switch from JY

disassemble e39 seat

disassemble neon seat

Get ‘em both good and drunk

bam!  Neon seat with e39 heater.  Just gotta wire it up.

stuart in mn said:

Katya4me said:

I haven't done the passenger side yet, but we put this on the driver's seat of my DD back in Oct. and I've loved it this past winter: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AKFISW2?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage

What I was going to say - there are multiple kits available to retrofit heaters into your existing seats.  If you're going to be modifying them already it seems like the way to go, rather than trying to make some other seats fit the car.

I honestly wrote off seat swaps pretty quick. These seats are close enough to fitting properly that theres no good reason to change to something completely different. Just add heaters while im in there.

They have the elements down pretty solid, it's the heater control that's sketchy in aftermarket setups. 

mazdeuce - Seth said:

They have the elements down pretty solid, it's the heater control that's sketchy in aftermarket setups. 

Is it totally unrealistic to think about putting one of these aftermarket pad setups into a car with a factory heated seat that doesn't work (most likely due the seat pad) and hooking it up to the factory switch?

In reply to 02Pilot :

I bet that would work perfectly. They’re just resistive heating elements. The only danger would be popping a fuse if the wattage was way off but that seems unlikely. 

In reply to dculberson :

Am I overthinking it a bit to be concerned that a substantial difference in resistance could render all the settings too hot or not hot enough, regardless of whether they're doing resistance or PWM or... ???

Dusterbd13-michael said:

In reply to Katya4me :

So far fairly durable? Are the multiple settings actually different or is it more just low/high?

Quite, I bought this kit because a friend had put them in 2 of his cars and been very happy with them.  On a very cold morning, I set it to 5 and then dial it down to 2 and I'm quite comfortable for the remainder of my 3 mile drive to the commuter lot.  Haven't really fiddled with it much past that. 

I have a 2004 Lexus RX330 in my driveway. It has heated seats. The controls for those seats are knobs that appear to let you twist up your desired heat level instead of just choosing warm or boil. I'd need to take things apart and do some measurements to be sure, but Lexus and maybe Toyota of this era might be a good source for controls. 

So, the consensus is that the aftermarket elements are good, but the controls are what cost extra for more reliable?

Katya4me said:

I haven't done the passenger side yet, but we put this on the driver's seat of my DD back in Oct. and I've loved it this past winter: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AKFISW2?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage

I might try this one, since it's pretty inexpensive... that said, my past experience with budget seat heater kits has not been great. We installed a set in my ex's Spitfire sourced from Victoria British and it didn't work worth a damn. After a bunch of head-scratching, I dug into it and found it's getting power everywhere, it's just the elements don't heat up to anywhere near the temps in our cars with factory heated seats.  The 5-position controls are the same as those in my 2003 Jetta, which are currently my "gold standard" for heated seats.

Well, as long as you have some familiarity with vehicle wiring, you shouldn't have any issues with this kit, and for $70, it was well worth it in my opinion.   The actual instruction sheet is quite poorly translated and probably hasn't been updated in 10+ years based on the pictures, but the elements are quite sound and the control looks pretty OEM; you just will probably have to drill a hole somewhere to mount it. 

I'm taking one for the team 

The $45 set with two position switches arrived from Amazon today and are going into these Fiat 124 seats

They have been recovered in the past and were assembled just crooked enough to drive me crazy

Wally said:

I don’t know what kit they used but when I bought the fiat the dealer charged $200 to install a set in the front seats they had two settings, very comfortably warm and something may be on fire.  They did wonders for my back.  

I may need to look into that. I would love that option in my Abarth

I ordered the same kit today, Trent. Youre ahead of me though. Wont be here till Monday. 

In reply to mad_machine :

It’s a bit of a ride but we got the car at Ramsey Fiat.  They may be able to tell you what kit the use or their installer.  They put two small round switches down by the parking brake out of the way and it looked and worked perfectly.

mazdeuce - Seth said:

I have a 2004 Lexus RX330 in my driveway. It has heated seats. The controls for those seats are knobs that appear to let you twist up your desired heat level instead of just choosing warm or boil. I'd need to take things apart and do some measurements to be sure, but Lexus and maybe Toyota of this era might be a good source for controls. 

My rx330 heated seats were witchcraft, they had warm up and cool down cycles. I doubt that there’s simplicity there, but you never know with toyota, alot of times they compartmentalize systems like that so maybe they stand alone. I’d like to know if they are cause they were slick, I’d retrofit all kinds of things with them.