Heated Seat - Not relay or switch!

[Keggers]

Hi

I have a 1998 996 coupe with heated seats. The heating on my drivers side seat suddenly stopped working a few days ago. The red light flashes then immediately turns off again. The passenger seat still works find.

I've tried swapping the switches over and both switches seem to be working fine. I have also just swapped the relays and the drivers side seat heating still doesn't work with the passenger side relay.

As far as I can see the connectors providing power under the seat are also plugged in fine.

So now I'm stumped. What else can I try??

Cheers

Greg

[1schoir]

Hi

I have a 1998 996 coupe with heated seats. The heating on my drivers side seat suddenly stopped working a few days ago. The red light flashes then immediately turns off again. The passenger seat still works find.

I've tried swapping the switches over and both switches seem to be working fine. I have also just swapped the relays and the drivers side seat heating still doesn't work with the passenger side relay.

As far as I can see the connectors providing power under the seat are also plugged in fine.

So now I'm stumped. What else can I try??

Cheers

Greg

Does the passenger side seat work with the driver's side relay?

I had the EXACT same symptoms that you are describing in my '97 986 and it turned out to be a faulty relay under the seat.

Regards, Maurice.

[Keggers]

Hmm. I actually didn't try that. Put the passenger side relay into the drivers side seat, but not the other way around. Will try that next though.

Do you mean that the relay holder/plug was faulty, rather than the relay itself?

Cheers,

Greg

Edited December 16, 2009 by Keggers

[1schoir]

Hmm. I actually didn't try that. Put the passenger side relay into the drivers side seat, but not the other way around. Will try that next though.

Do you mean that the relay holder/plug was faulty, rather than the relay itself?

Cheers,

Greg

Greg:

In my case, it was the relay itself that was faulty. In my Boxster, the two relays (driver's and passenger's) were identical parts, except for the brackets. Those were mirror images of each other.

Regards, Maurice.

[jgriffin56]

There a few threads going over this subject recently/ Some have found the swith or relay faulty and some have found that the actual element in the set is faulty. Check out the other threads.

[Keggers]

So I pulled the seat out today. Tested for continuity on the power leads going into the base and backrest heaters. Found that there was a problem on the backrest one. Undid the leather at the back of the backrest (it just clips off) and spotted that there was burn damage on the element around the wire just after where the cable is soldered into the heat element.

Have attached two pictures taken with my mobile phone (they aren't great quality!).

It seems that the wire there had become rusty on about an inch of the element wire. Must have caused it to overheat and the wire to break. I was lucky it was so close to the bottom of the seat so that I could spot it.

Anyway, I managed to cut off the rusty bit of wire and solder the cable onto the clean bit. Put it all back together and bingo, I have a working heated seat again.

Am delighted with my work, especially as we are having some of the coldest weather of the year here in Ireland at the moment.

Thanks for the help.

Greg

Edited December 21, 2009 by Keggers

[1schoir]

Great work, Greg! :clapping: :clapping: :clapping:

Thanks for posting the outcome!

Regards, Maurice.

[Dharn55]

Great that you could fix it. If you need to actually replace it the part (996.521.531.01) lists for only $105. At Sunset it is only about $80.