Hi all. I have a 2004 D2 HSE (63k miles) where the drivers side heated seat has stopped working. If I turn the seat on the light on the switch lights up but no heat. The passenger side seat works fine.

I looked under the seat and see 3 fuses but all appear to be fine. What am I missing here? Is there another fuse I need to check?

All the connectors under the seat appear to be connected as well

Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks

 

Best bet is to confirm the relay is working and test you get current on the lead to the heater elements by using a multimeter or a simple test light. If so but you don't get heat, then the heater element may be broken. If I had to guess, I'd say the elements consist of carbon fibers or ribbons that have enough resistance they heat up when you create a voltage differential on their opposite ends, kind of like inside your toaster. If you sit on them often enough, they may eventually break and open the circuit. The driver side usually gets more mechanical wear on it from more frequent sitting.

 

Do not use it until you get the element replaced. Mine went intermittent and I kept using it. The element was broken and movement in the seat caused it to connect/disconnect. Nearly caught fire, melted through the seat cushion and leather cover and burnt my backside pretty good. Element is cheap to replace. Still haven't done mine yet though. I don't have the time, the 'hog-ring pliers' or the money for someone else to do it.

-aaron
2003 SE7 135000 miles and counting

 

Both seats are fused thru the same single fuse, F15 inside the truck. Don't install a larger fuse. The left hand seat circuit goes thru connector C0255 under the seat, see pix. The wire from main harness is blue with gray, and should read 12 volts to ground when switch is on. The wire headed toward the seat heater is red on the companion connector. Read ohms to ground there, if open then either an element is open, the thermostatic switch in the seat element is open, or one of the plugs under seat is unplugged. The seat bottom and the back heaters are in series, if you bypass or short out one element, you double the power to the other, and could make Rover toast quite easily. Plenty of color pix and wiring diagrams in the RAVE. lots of connectors and headers involved.

 

A dumb question and sorry to semi thread jack but is there a way to find out if seats in a 2000 model have the heat pads in them? I'm aware all discos came wired for seats so you can buy the switches and plate but unsure if I actually have the pads or not. Would there be a connector hanging out somewhere or do I have to resort to pulling off the entire cover to find out?

 

sure, open the rear passenger door, grab the bottom lip of the back of the seat cover and pull it down hard so it comes off the edge of the metal plate. Lift the now loose flap of the seat cover and see the wires going into the heating element and back out again. You can trace those wires down under the seat, and through the connector to the harness that goes to the center console. To return the seat cover, you just pull it over the metal edge so the channel piece grabs the edge again.

 

I'm pretty sure the bottom heat element can be replaced by just shoving it in from the back after you lift the flap like I described. I'm not sure the old one will come out so easy though. Mine appears to be glued to the foam cushion. Maybe I'll just put the new on on top of the old one and leave both in there. I'm pretty sure taking the old one out is going to take off a chunk of foam anyway. The bottom element is most likely to be broken since it gets the wear. Since they're in series and resistive, it's hard to test with just a test light/continuity tester (a multimeter would work), but it seems like 100 to 1 the bottom's going to be the one.

 

has anyone had any luck finding the broken wire and resoldering it?

Or is pad replacement the only way to go?

 

The cushion heating pad is only like $45, too cheap to be worth a fix imo.

 

The seat heater pad is put on with a glue adhesive and it will not tear any of the foam off the cushion.... you would have to cut into it to find a break in the wire and like stated its not worth it to do. Yo need to take the cushion out/ take cover off and replace hearer pad to get it lined up correctly very easy task.