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Heated seat - driver's side

19K views 101 replies 50 participants last post by  Chunkem 
#1 ·
My driver’s seat heater seldom warms the seat. With a remote start in cold weather the seat does not heat, the heated seat switch shows two red LEDs, a hint of warmth can be felt after 12 to 15 minutes of driving but the seat never gets warm and what warmth can be detected is in the seat back. Sometimes, manually turning on the heated seat, the seat will warm up within a few minutes and I have to lower the heat setting.

I’m curious to know how others view the functionality of their heated seat. Does it warm up fast? How warm does it get and how long does it take?

This is my first Chrysler product having driven GM and Fords for most of my driving life. I’ve never seen a heated seat perform so poorly and the dealer is telling me that the seats do not get that warm anymore. Is the dealer right?
 
#5 ·
Ha ha. :LOL:

Mine (with premium cloth seats) get pretty warm, pretty quickly, too. Love them! :smiley_thumbs_up:
 
#4 ·
Don't know, never sat in the passenger seat. Good suggestion, I can't believe I didn't think of that.

I wonder if the same module controls heating for both seats.
 
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#13 ·
Not yet, I'm on my second dealer trying to get this fixed. The real problem is the service bay techs do not understand the operating parameters and each time they call the Chrysler STAR line, they get different answers.

I'm taking a different approach today, lucky for me, my son is an engineer at Chrysler and he brought home his diagnostic tools. We will rung through the heated seat diagnostics today.

Using a infrared thermometer I have measured the temperature of my heater seat after five minutes of engine warm-up with out sitting in it, I read 74 degrees. After driving to work (30 minutes), heated seat on high, I measured 92 degrees. This isn't heated, it is slightly warm.
 
#18 ·
You are correct, vented seats are the ones not warming up.

Like alot of other people in this thread mentioned, my seat will burn your arss if you let it. I'd say either your seat heat is no plugged in or you have lost all your feelings in your butt. Because you said you took an IR reading and only show 92 degrees im leaning towards your heater is no functioning.
My son ran through the diagnostics this weekend and his conclusion is a poor design. The front seat heaters pulled three amps on high, compare that to the heated steering wheel at seven amps. Everything appeared to be functioning correctly and no DTCs were set.

My rear seats warm up nicely, it is just the front seats. Like said, the low setting, well, my body heat does more than the heater pads. On high, I can barely feel warmth.

I've had heated seats in many vehicles including my wife's Tahoe which has heated/cooled seating and they got nice and warm. All I have left is to beg Chrysler to re-evaluate the seat heating system and release better calibrations.
 
#15 ·
I experience the same "lack" of heat..

I think its due to being used to different vehicles. I used to drive a Ford Escape, and the heated seats worked way better than my dodge. You really felt the heat instantly and good.

The dodge, not as good. But after im getting used to this "style" of heat, I am starting to feel it..

For those of you on here that say the heated seats are very hot, just wondering, have you drove mostly dodges?
 
#16 ·
This '13 has pretty weak seat heaters compared to my '10 and '12 it seems. Its possible they may have made them 'not so hot' on purpose - someone may have sued for lowered sperm count or something lol.

The low position hardly does anything, granted its only been in the 30s here for lows but I remember my '12 getting a lot hotter - almost to the point of being uncomfortably warm on high.
 
#17 ·
Like alot of other people in this thread mentioned, my seat will burn your arss if you let it. I'd say either your seat heat is no plugged in or you have lost all your feelings in your butt. Because you said you took an IR reading and only show 92 degrees im leaning towards your heater is no functioning.
 
#19 ·
That's what I was thinking.... If this was my 1st vehicle that had heated seats, I would probably think they were really good,,, but because my escape had heated seats, im comparing the two, and the escape wins.

At first, they seem like they don't work, but there is heat , and they are working...


To the poster above...It would be interesting to find somebody that says the heated seats work awesome and they burn their butt off...... I wonder if the diagnotsitc would be the same. This would be the only true way to squash this mystery.
 
#20 ·
+1

They do work, but not as well as my previous 4th gen Rams and they were both Laramies with the heated/cooled buckets. Its possible they may be limiting the current in the newer trucks to keep some other electronics happy. Or its possible they are sourcing the heater elements from a different company and they changed some time during 2013 production.

Either way they do work, both my driver and passenger seat are about the same.
 
#24 ·
I heat up my lunch on my seats!

I have driven several different vehicles with butt warmers (mostly Nissan now that I think about it), and I find these to be just as warm if not warmer than those.

1 Bonneville (cloth), 2 Nissan Pathfinders (1 with cloth 1 with leather), 1 Nissan Murano (leather), and 1 Nissan Altima (cloth).
 
#26 ·
What the heck is going on here?

Half the people on here say their butt is burning off, and the other half think they seat is not working to the point they thing of going to the dealer??

I wish my but was burning off, but I feel the heat, but not like I expected. Almost to the point where I have considered taking it to the dealer.

I wonder if everybodies seats work the same, but the difference in opinion are the eye of the beholder?
 
#27 ·
Good question and I am wondering the same thing as you.

First off, there are several folks chiming in that have heated seats but not the heated/vented seats. This issue is about the heating ability of the heated/vented seats and not the non-vented seats.

Here is the behavior of my seats. Yesterday morning, 21 degrees outside, remote start. Enter the vehicle seven minutes after the remote start. Driver's heated seat indicator showing two red lights. Heated steering wheel indicator on.

Steering wheel, nice and warm, driver's seat, like sitting on an ice block. After 20 minutes of driving, I feel a bit of warmth on my lower back, nothing on the seat bottom. Another five minutes pass, and I can feel warmth on the seat and it is a little warmer on my back. 15 minutes later I arrive at work and the seats didn't get any warmer.

Using an infrared thermometer, I measured the seats when I got to work, the lower seat back and far back seat cushion indicated a temperature of 94 degrees.

I've also tested the front passenger seat, same behavior as the drivers seat. The two outboard rear seats warm nicely and as expected, on par with other vehicles I own.

So, for the ones that say they get their buts burned off, are your seats the heated/vented seats? Can you measure and post the temperature of your seat and how long it took to get the warmth?
 
#28 ·
The above post... that's almost exactly my description of what goes on..

How about we attempt to to this... everybody list what type of seat they have (cloth or leather) if they have just heated or both heated and vented, and the truck type, and how their heat works

Maybe we can find a common thing happening here.

Mine:
Leather
Heated and Vented
2013 Dodge Sport
Heat: Not so good
 
#36 ·
My '13 Laramie seats are leather vented and get hot in about a minute. they get very hot after 15 min that i have to lower it to the low setting. the wife loves how hot they get.

I will take a temp reading when I get home. but I can say they are working very well.

I would say to those with no or low heat when set to high that the heating elements are probably defective and need to be replaced. that or the thermal cut off is defective.
 
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