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Heated Seats not working

bradleyJ

New Member
Joined
Dec 23, 2020
Messages
5
I know there are a ton of threads on this but I'm seeing conflicting information so I am hoping for a straight answer. I have a 2006 Z71 Avalanche that has factory heated seats, they do not work. When pressing either button on either side, the button will only stay lit for a split second, a relay can be heard clicking. From my research I gather this is a bad element or multiple elements (the foot pedal work adjuster works on the drivers side still). Where I am confused is some people are saying that if a passenger element is bad, the drivers seat won't work in addition to the passenger seat, vice versa and I am also reading the opposite where people are saying if an element is bad on one side the other will be unaffected. Also wondering if there's a good aftermarket option for these elements, would prefer not to buy OEM and have to do this again.

Thank you
 
When mine did as you describe, the first time it was the driver's seat back element, pictured below.

A year later they did the same thing and it was the driver's seat bottom element pad.

I replaced each with Dorman element pads I bought off of Amazon.

Everything has worked fine for well over 5 years now.

I would imagine the driver's seat element pads would be the first to go since that seat is used every time the truck is driven and the passenger seat is used much less.

My first failure occurred during the middle of summer while I was sitting on line at my bank's drive thru.

I noticed my seat back was getting really hot and the seat heater was turned on.

At first, I thought I might have accidently turned on the heater when I rolled down the window.

Instead, the heater had turned itself on when the seat back heater element went bad.

After I turned the heater off and then back on, it performed as you describe above until I replaced the bad pads.

I suspect a break in some of the tiny wiring occurs after the wires get flexed enough over of time, causing too much current in the remaining wires that cause those to overheat and also break open and so forth and so on until too much current is drawn and the computer shuts the system down entirely.

The computer probably watches for a range of resistance, just like it does with the SRS system to determine properly connected components.

If the resistance is out of range, the computer can determine there is an open or short and then disables the affected system.

When my seat heaters went out with bad driver's seat element pads, both seats failed with the same symptoms until either one of the driver's seat element pads were replaced.


Driversseatheaterback04.JPG
 
When mine did as you describe, the first time it was the driver's seat back element, pictured below.

A year later they did the same thing and it was the driver's seat bottom element pad.

I replaced each with Dorman element pads I bought off of Amazon.

Everything has worked fine for well over 5 years now.

I would imagine the driver's seat element pads would be the first to go since that seat is used every time the truck is driven and the passenger seat is used much less.

My first failure occurred during the middle of summer while I was sitting on line at my bank's drive thru.

I noticed my seat back was getting really hot and the seat heater was turned on.

At first, I thought I might have accidently turned on the heater when I rolled down the window.

Instead, the heater had turned itself on when the seat back heater element went bad.

After I turned the heater off and then back on, it performed as you describe above until I replaced the bad pads.

I suspect a break in some of the tiny wiring occurs after the wires get flexed enough over of time, causing too much current in the remaining wires that cause those to overheat and also break open and so forth and so on until too much current is drawn and the computer shuts the system down entirely.

The computer probably watches for a range of resistance, just like it does with the SRS system to determine properly connected components.

If the resistance is out of range, the computer can determine there is an open or short and then disables the affected system.

When my seat heaters went out with bad driver's seat element pads, both seats failed with the same symptoms until either one of the driver's seat element pads were replaced.


View attachment 232023
Awesome, thank you for the reply, I'll pick some up and see what happens.
 
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