Heated Seat Element Failure

[maxc666]

As covered in other threads, my wife's 2001 CLK320 cab has suffered a few problems including one I'd forgotten - a failed heated seat element on the driver's side.

The seat had a real hot-spot and we didn't anything about it during the warranty period (1 year as it was an import). Last winter we mentioned it to the dealer while they were trying to sort some other problems and they diagnosed a failed element. It is integral with the leather seat cover and they said it had burned the foam, so they disconnected it for safety.

Given that it is an import, there's no goodwill - so they want £250+ for a new cover. To me this sucks, so I'm thinking of using a carbon fibre heating pad (http://www.sportsimportsltd.com/afcarseathea.html) and patching the foam as necessary. The seat cover is not marked on the outside (though is apparently scorched underneath), so I see no need to change it and this looks an effective fix that can be spliced into the MB loom to retain the original controls.

Any other ideas on this? I have not taken the seat apart myself, so there may be other effective fixes.

max.

 

[topdown]

I replaced the seat cover in my CLK after it got chewing gum on it and transferred the elememts to the new cover.

If you got a replacement heaters you could do the same.

It is a difficult job to remove the cover and care has to be taken that the wires embeded in the foam are not damaged as the tightness of the cover would suffer. Once you get the cover off the heating elements fit into pockets in the underside of the cover.

If you go down this road allow at least 4-5hrs in a garage with the seat removed.

Take care as the edges of the seat pan are very sharp and finger slicing is possible.

Seat cover without heating elements was £220 plus vat.

In answer to your option of different matts it would depend on the amps if wiring into your existsing wiring.

rgds

dave

 

[Shude]

oem heated seat pads by themselves are quite cheap, strip the old pad out and refit. they are available on their own

The cheapest pads I've found so far are from the a-class...