Seat heater element swap?

BlueCTTDi

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Sep 26, 2005
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2004 Golf GLS (PD) - Indigo Blue
Question for those of you who may have upgraded your seats.. Is it possible to remove the elements from the stock GLS seats and put them into an aftermarket seat? I saw a set of the GLI Recaros relatively cheap that looked like they would be sweet, but in New England, I refuse to give up the heated seats in the winter.. thoughts?
 

skicrave

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Jul 21, 2003
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Bend, OR
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2004 Passat 1.8T 4Motion Wagon
There has been much speculation about whether or not this is possible, but to the best of my knowledge, no one has confirmed the situation. What I've heard is that the element is sewn into the cover itself, which means it may be possible to remove it, but not simple.

I installed Recaros in the spring, and now that it's cooling down, this is starting to rise up my priority list. I'm planning on pulling the covers off my stock seats to see what the situation is, unless someone can provide solid evidence that it's not worth the trouble.

The other option is to install an aftermarket heating element, I'm just not sure if you could control that with the stock switches.
 

BlueCTTDi

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2004 Golf GLS (PD) - Indigo Blue
Definitely keep me posted on how you make out with them.. I saw the Recaros for $800 for the set and was going to pounce on them so long as I could put heaters in them. I had the same question as you - I wouldn't be adverse to buying aftermarket units so long as they'd be compatible with the OEM switches.
 

hskrdu

Top Post Dawg
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Oct 17, 2003
Location
Maryland and New England
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2003 Golf GLS 4D 5M, 2015 GSW SE 6M
A search on heated seats will give you lots of great info from the past 2 years. I don't have the links readily available.

In brief, the heaters are both under the seat cover (skin) as well as attached to the skin. If you want to swap your seats for recaros (from a vw that fits the tracks), and you want to put your skins on the new frames, you WILL be transferring the heater elements. Here's the problem(s): The skins from comfortline seats / cushions do not perfectly fit on recaro frames / cushions. Next, if the recaros are unheated, you need to transfer all the wiring, assuming you have the in-dash wiring and switches.

If you want the recaro skins to stay on, you will have trouble taking the heater elements out of the old seats and putting them in the recaro seats, not to mention the wiring.

If you want to mix frames, cushions, and skins, you'll have to check with Lito! He's an expert.

You can also get Volvo seat heater elements and add them to the recaros. These can wired for control from both their own on/off switches, or (with work) from the oem switches.

Lots of great info avaialble under a search. Good luck.
 

skicrave

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Location
Bend, OR
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2004 Passat 1.8T 4Motion Wagon
You can also get Volvo seat heater elements and add them to the recaros. These can wired for control from both their own on/off switches, or (with work) from the oem switches.
Where did you get that info. I've followed every heated seat thread for the last three years and have never seen anyone confirm that.

If this is true, that's the answer I needed, as that is much easier than trying to swap my existing elements into the GLI seats.
 

tongsli

Top Post Dawg
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2000 Jetta TDI, 2004, Jetta Wagon TDI PD
Strretch posted the Volvo seat heating elements. Also keep in mind the wiring, switches and heating elements are not identical for cloth and leather. It may not be advisable to mix and match cloth seat parts for leather seats parts especially when it comes to seat heating.

The volvo heating elements don't work with the OEM switches. They're either on or off. They do not adjust like the OEM seat heaters.

Strretch installed them in his Golf.

If I didn't have a Standheizung in both of our cars, and I wanted heated seats, I'd install an aftermarket set and have them triggered with the rear defrost.

By the time the defrost turns off, the car/interior should be sufficiently warm.
 

hskrdu

Top Post Dawg
Joined
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Location
Maryland and New England
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2003 Golf GLS 4D 5M, 2015 GSW SE 6M
Strretch posted the Volvo seat heating elements.
Lito to the rescue!
Thanks Lito, I knew you'd have the seat-mod answers.


The volvo heating elements don't work with the OEM switches. They're either on or off. They do not adjust like the OEM seat heaters.
Right, from what I've read they are only on-off, but I thought a club member DID connect them to his oem switches, where 1-5 is on, and 0 was off. Basically he set it up so turning the vw switch turned on the heat elements. I'll see if I can find it. -Steve
 

hskrdu

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Oct 17, 2003
Location
Maryland and New England
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2003 Golf GLS 4D 5M, 2015 GSW SE 6M
Where did you get that info. I've followed every heated seat thread for the last three years and have never seen anyone confirm that.

If this is true, that's the answer I needed
Well, either I made it up out of nowhere, or you missed these threads amongst every heated seat thread over the past 3 years
Ok, so you have to check every heated seat thread for the past five years!


http://forums.tdiclub.com/showflat.php?C...true#Post367702

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showflat.php?C...=true#Post77843

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showflat.php?C...true#Post360127

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showflat.php?C...true#Post371209

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showflat.php?C...true#Post744286

Lito, here's the quote I was thinking of regarding the elements getting connected to the stock switches:

(2) I used the switches for the cloth seats since the wiring for the Volvo heaters from ipdusa.com is exactly the same as the VW cloth seats. That is, the switches are wired in parallel, but the heating elements for seat and seat back are wired in series. For the leather, on the other hand, the heating elements (4 per seat) are wired in parallel from each of the switches, which are also wired in parallel. I don't have a good guess as to which is better/hotter, but I thought I'd follow the same sort of setup VW uses for cloth. I recommend studying the difference between the two in the wiring diagrams in Bentley and decide which will work best for your application.

(3) Note that the VW switches are not merely switches but also are controllers. They react to the signal from the heater's thermostat and adjust the heat accordingly. With the ipdusa seats, the thermostat is built in, and this is why BRBarian's wiring with a 15k resistor, which tricks the controller into always being on, is necessary. I wasn't sure from Bernie's description, but I confirmed that the controller does switch off power to the heaters when the key is off, even though the heaters draw power from screw post 30 (unswitched) under the dash. Just make sure pin 6 is wired to switched power. A fused connection to post 75X would work for this.
Good luck. LOTS more info available thru searching, I just ran outta time. Let us know how it goes!
 

tongsli

Top Post Dawg
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Jan 31, 2000
Location
Baltimore, MD
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2000 Jetta TDI, 2004, Jetta Wagon TDI PD
Thanks Steve!

but I thought a club member DID connect them to his oem switches, where 1-5 is on, and 0 was off.
Yes he did, but that's an awfully expensive way to trigger the seat heating. The defrost switch has two extra pins that can act as a trigger for a relay feeding the seat heating.

The German VW's mirrors could either be triggered off the defrost or separate knob.

L
 

skicrave

Veteran Member
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Jul 21, 2003
Location
Bend, OR
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2004 Passat 1.8T 4Motion Wagon
Well, since I already have the switches in place from my factory setup, that's the route I'm leaning.

There is still the chance that the elements used in the OEM Recaro's for German A4s are available and can be retrofitted. I'm having Dan at Hillside take a look at see if they can be ordered apart from the seat skin. There was a previous post that indicated they were available separately
 

tongsli

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Jan 31, 2000
Location
Baltimore, MD
TDI
2000 Jetta TDI, 2004, Jetta Wagon TDI PD
Don't be surprised if one heating element cost you $100. I ordered the seat elements(a while ago)with Impex so we could see what comes with the heating element.

So, potentially $400 to buy all four but who knows. Please let us know what Dan comes up with. He'll definately get you the best pricing.
 

BlueCTTDi

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2004 Golf GLS (PD) - Indigo Blue
Yeah, definitely keep us posted - b/c if you find out that I can get these seats to be heated I'm treating myself to that set of Recaros
 

VelvetFoot

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Sand Lake, NY
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NB, 2000, Yellow
I installed some aftermarket seat heaters that work pretty well. They are cloth, impregnated with something or other. They shouldn't (and haven't for me) fail after rough treatment.
 

skicrave

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Bend, OR
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2004 Passat 1.8T 4Motion Wagon
That's the secret question, the old adage of do it right the first time comes to mind here. It may cost a little more, but seeing as I already have the stock switches and wiring in place, it sure would be nice to be able to make use of all 5 temperature settings.
 

tongsli

Top Post Dawg
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That's the secret question, the old adage of do it right the first time comes to mind here. It may cost a little more, but seeing as I already have the stock switches and wiring in place, it sure would be nice to be able to make use of all 5 temperature settings.
Then you'd better get the correct wiring diagrams and more important the correct seat heating elements. IIRC, one of them has a built in thermostat somewhere in the wiring which is why the cloth and leather are different.

Reading both wiring diagrams will tell you this. This subject was also already covered in the threads Steve posted.
 

tongsli

Top Post Dawg
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Location
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2000 Jetta TDI, 2004, Jetta Wagon TDI PD
Well,

I just spoke to Dan and the seat heating elements are as follows:

Each Seat Back $170, each seat bottom $120 plus shipping to the US.

So that's $580 for the heating elements before shipping.
 

BlueCTTDi

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Manchester, CT
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2004 Golf GLS (PD) - Indigo Blue
youch.. and I'm assuming that is for the oem european model recaro seat elements which would retain the adjustable heat settings, right?

(by the way, thanks a ton for the info on this stuff - it is very greatly appreciated
)
 

BlueCTTDi

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2004 Golf GLS (PD) - Indigo Blue
Decisions, decisions. just how much is it worth it to have a warm a$$ this winter as opposed to sitting in stock GLS seats for another year.....

you rock - thanks for the info
 

tongsli

Top Post Dawg
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2000 Jetta TDI, 2004, Jetta Wagon TDI PD
Well, at $600 you're almost to the cost of buying a Webasto diesel-powered heater. And that is much better for you and your car.
 

251

TDI Owner/Operator
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May 11, 2002
Location
NW IN
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2015 Passat TDI SEL
Well, at $600 you're almost to the cost of buying a Webasto diesel-powered heater. And that is much better for you and your car.
And with a Webasto / TDI Heater I don't even use the heated seats much (only on the coldest days) and I've got leather!
I agree with Mr. Tongsli it's more cost effective to blow your bucks going the Webasto way!
 

BlueCTTDi

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2004 Golf GLS (PD) - Indigo Blue
hmm.. excellent points. something I may look into - would probably be better for the engine, especially when it gets down to 0 ambient around here in january..

I knew picking all of your brains would do some good
 
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