My seat heater is dead. How do I replace the element? (1 Viewer)

[Pyrenees]

Now that Fall is here, I decided to turn on the heated seat in the LX 470 I bought a couple of months ago. Surprise surprise, no heat from the bottom or back of the driver's seat. The bottom half of the leather seat was previously re-covered, so I'm guessing they may have broken it in the process.

15A fuse was good. Lights on the heated seat switches illuminate on high/low for both seats when operated. The three-pin harness for the heated seat is positioned just underneath the front of the seat, so I flipped the heated seat switch on and measured at the harness on the body side.

White/black = ground -
Black/blue = low setting +
Red/green = high setting +

I stuck a voltmeter on the terminals (on the body side, not the seat side) with the heated seat switch on and the ignition on.

Measured 7.76 V between ground/low setting.
Measured 7.82 V between ground/high setting.

Seems as though voltage is being supplied to the seat, so I'm pretty sure the seat heater element is dead.

Has anyone replaced the heater elements? How hard was it? Has anyone tried an aftermarket heater element solution or is there a reason to get the OEM ones instead?

I am not afraid to take this seat apart, but I'd like to do this just once, so any input would be great.

 

[Pyrenees]

Did a bit more searching and I could not find any 100-series DIY for this. The closest I came was a teardown of an FJ Cruiser seat and heated seat element install Fresh thread for Heated Seat Install - Toyota FJ Cruiser Forum

In that thread he said it would take most of the day to perform it, would require $35 worth of tools + the heating element. Indeed, the photos make it look quite laborious.

The stock 100 series elements are like $250-400 based on my searches and the aftermarket gamble is about $75. So in theory I could get the heated seat working again for about $100-125 plus the better part of a day to do it.

I think I'm going to wait until it's time to do a seat teardown for a more pressing reason (if that reason ever happens) and then I will combine it with a seat heater repair. I love a toasty butt in the winter but that's a lot of work for something non-critical.

 

[scwill]

Before I bought my LC the lower seats were re covered. For whatever reason they didnt re install my lower pad on the passenger. Its plug and play. You can get it from ebay or the dealer for a stupid amount of money. Im super anal but in the end decided to leave as is. You can go on used car parts . com and buy a used seat from a junk yard and rip the element out. I called several around cen tex and no one even had an LC seat. Huge pain in the butt. Let me know if you come up with something different.

 

[kruisinkid]

i unfortunately also have a dead drivers seat heater. i pulled the seat yesterday to try to see if i could diagnose the issue. i found a burned through wire in the back element right before the resistor(?) pack. resoldered it but it did not fix it. i have new wet okole seat covers to go on the seats so it was a 2 birds one stone operation to pull the seat.

we have different trucks with different labeled connectors, however, if you disconnect the connector labeled BP1 it is only using 5 wires. 2 of those wires feed raw 12v + and - to all the seat motors. the other 3 wires are just for the heaters. pins 7, 8, 10. if you meter between 7 and 10 and 8 and 10 you should get about 12 volts on each pair that then split off under the cushion.

the aftermarket fix (i hope): i ordered the dorman 628-040 universal heater kit in hopes i could make this work with the toyota switch. you would have to have the kit in front of you to understand exactly what I'm saying but essentially, buy the kit, cut off the switch, connect the long brown wire to the W-B wire (S14 connector), connect dorman R-L wire to toyota R-G (S14), connect dorman R-Y to toyota B-L (S14). its only a theory that i hope to prove out in the next couple days but i think it should work. you need all the rest of the dorman harness in tact. you can cut out the rest of the unconnected wires from it though. might just be a small black and a red wire with the fuse block on it. dormans method is to switch between series and parallel pads to differ between hi and lo. keeping the hole relay portion is what makes that happen. i will post again once i wire this in early next week.

as for the pads i am just going to wrap them in quilt batting and put them between the seat leather and my new neoprene covers. i really dont want to take the seats all the way apart. but if you are keeping the leather you would have to do a pretty full teardown.

 

[scrappyslexus]

Can someone share the part numbers for the heating elements

 

[kruisinkid]

For a 2000 LC. Double check for truck

 

[charles barr]

i unfortunately also have a dead drivers seat heater. i pulled the seat yesterday to try to see if i could diagnose the issue. i found a burned through wire in the back element right before the resistor(?) pack. resoldered it but it did not fix it. i have new wet okole seat covers to go on the seats so it was a 2 birds one stone operation to pull the seat.

we have different trucks with different labeled connectors, however, if you disconnect the connector labeled BP1 it is only using 5 wires. 2 of those wires feed raw 12v + and - to all the seat motors. the other 3 wires are just for the heaters. pins 7, 8, 10. if you meter between 7 and 10 and 8 and 10 you should get about 12 volts on each pair that then split off under the cushion.

the aftermarket fix (i hope): i ordered the dorman 628-040 universal heater kit in hopes i could make this work with the toyota switch. you would have to have the kit in front of you to understand exactly what I'm saying but essentially, buy the kit, cut off the switch, connect the long brown wire to the W-B wire (S14 connector), connect dorman R-L wire to toyota R-G (S14), connect dorman R-Y to toyota B-L (S14). its only a theory that i hope to prove out in the next couple days but i think it should work. you need all the rest of the dorman harness in tact. you can cut out the rest of the unconnected wires from it though. might just be a small black and a red wire with the fuse block on it. dormans method is to switch between series and parallel pads to differ between hi and lo. keeping the hole relay portion is what makes that happen. i will post again once i wire this in early next week.

as for the pads i am just going to wrap them in quilt batting and put them between the seat leather and my new neoprene covers. i really dont want to take the seats all the way apart. but if you are keeping the leather you would have to do a pretty full teardown.

How did this repair go? Im in the same boat and want to know if the Dorman heater kit worked for you???

 

[kruisinkid]

The soldering job on the original elements actually worked they are just very slow to heat up compared to a newer vehicle. I never got around to trying my theory for the dorman kit. I would think it should work though

 

[Somebodyelse5]

I think I have a 100 series element if someone is interested

 

[YardPig]

This is a great thread for info. At higher mileage we are seeing failures on the seat elements.

 

[ipxih12]

Hopefully not too far off topic; also looking for seat solution!

I had one of the resistors in the seat heater burn out (not the heating element trace wire). Hoping someone will know the sizes of resistors I need to replace so that I can get mine working again!

 

[Mike NXP]

I think I have a 100 series element if someone is interested

Is this option still out there?

 

[JGRaider]

My passenger seat works great, driver seat does not in spite of switch/lights that do work.

 

[Somebodyelse5]

Is this option still out there?

Sadly no, gave it away when i sold my 100

 

[Formerjeeper]

Is this option still out there?

Planning on redoing seats in next few months and will have 2 elements available if you can survive rest of this winter without. Send me a PM.

 

[Somebodyelse5]

Planning on redoing seats in next few months and will have 2 elements available if you can survive rest of this winter without. Send me a PM.

Might be worth just wiring up an aftermarket set. The dorman set i just put in my 80 work waaaaay better than the ones in my 100

 

[Mike NXP]

Anyone out there have some advice on how to deal with a burnt out spot on the seat heater element? I'm in the process of reupholstering the leather.



On the driver side, the side wing of the heater element has a small burnt spot and the wire has been broken.



I wonder if I can just cut this part of the heater out ? The heater works even with this burnt

 

[GH1291]

I used the information available in this thread to replace my factory seat heaters with aftermarket Dorman heaters. I cut the factory wiring on the body side for the high and low heat settings and connected them to the Dorman relay as Kruisinkid described. I used the seat bolt as a ground for the relay and cut out all other wires. These heaters work much quicker than the factory units do.

 

[kruisinkid]

I still never got back around to installing the dorman stuff but im so glad you tried it and more importantly it worked! I still have all those parts somewhere. Maybe some day!

 

[GH1291]

My wiring was a slightly different color thank yours, but I was able to figure it all out with a multi-meter. Thanks for posting quality information.