Thread: Retrofitting Heated seats

So 4 years on, I finally got around to this. The Perth winters are super cold, as you all know... haha.

The part list above is pretty close, you will need 2 heating pads per seat, plus a control unit (note, these are different for the left and right seats), the control unit link cables (very rare), and the ac control buttons.

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Installation isn't the easiest retrofit i've done, and not for the faint of heart...

The centre console buttons are the easiest - plug and play using an ebay unit. Just pay attention to the location of your eject button, as this changed in the facelift. The two aren't physically compatible (trust me on this)

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For the seats, its a little more involved.

Start by removing the seat - note you need to also undo the seatbelt anchor bolt, and may need to move the seat forward and back to reach all the bolts. The trim pieces at the back of the seats is the worst part.
Once unbolted, disconnect the battery (to avoid airbag issues), unplug the electrical connection at the bottom of the seat, and remove.

Flip the seat upside down, and there are 4 bolts to undo to remove the seat base. You will also need to remove the green occupancy sensor plug from the electrical housing on the passenger side. Various cables and plugs are attached to the metal base, so take your time here.

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Next, you're unclipping the plastic upholstery clips. Kind of push down and bring the top outward to remove from the metal base.

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You need to cut the hog ties deep in the valleys of the foam to remove the leather completely.

Next, stick on the heating element (adhesive backed)

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Time to reattach the leather, and there are special metal rings used to keep the leather tight on the seat base. Thankfully, I had installed a new fence aroud the property recently and had a metric tonne of these rings left, which worked perfectly

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Putting the leather back on is the reverse of taking it off, and honestly, not as hard as I feared.

The seat back is easier - no hog ties to contend with, just unclip the bottom, and you can slide the heat pad right in. There are two little pull cords you can undo to make life easier

It's important to have an ergonomic work area for this...

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Then, plug everything in, including the control unit to the main wiring housing on the seat base and reinstall into the car. The car-side wiring is all in place already.

You will need an IID tool to enable the function in the CCF - easy done.

Cruising around with a toasty arse is absolutely lovely. Not a retrofit for everyone, but i certainly appreciate it.

Way beyond my skill levels.

It's been freezing here the last few weeks - there was ice on the car windscreens a couple of mornings ago - so I've been taking our CR-V everywhere because it has heated seats.

Looks harder than it is, honestly.

The irony is I had to move our other car out of the garage to make room to work. That car, a VW Tiguan, has heated seats already, so I wasn’t without options…!

I also love the cockpit look of more buttons and no ‘blanks’, but it does mean I now need to retrofit a heated windshield and front parking sensors haha

Originally Posted by veebs

Looks harder than it is, honestly.

Yes, but it took me 5 hours to put a chook shed together last weekend.

Originally Posted by Arapiles

Yes, but it took me 5 hours to put a chook shed together last weekend.

What tools could a chook possibly need that warrant a shed to put them in?

Originally Posted by BradC

What tools could a chook possibly need that warrant a shed to put them in?

Beak sharpeners
Hens teeth toothbrush
Egg polishing equipment

The list goes on....

Originally Posted by BradC

What tools could a chook possibly need that warrant a shed to put them in?

Somewhere to put her cock?

Originally Posted by veebs

I now need to retrofit a heated windshield

We had one on the D1, and I have one on the D3. Not a fan.

Aside from the wires impeding GPS reception through the windscreen, the diffraction of oncoming headlights at night is pretty unpleasant when it's really dark.