Heated Seats, anyone done it?

[darkl4805]

I spoke with their support department and said we had Recaro seats. At first he said no because the leather was sewn to the pad but then I explained that they were trend and that the cover was removable. After that he said 'ohh we fit those just not the racing seats.'

[PHO2GR4]

Well, searching online, I found a lot of Recaro Trend seats with heating and electric height/recline adjustments for about $1575 EACH.

So, for $3150 plus shipping, you could get some killer new seats.

Ahem.

[Mark Miller]

I've installed the katzkin heating elements before, not in a vx.
Not a hard job took less than a days work.
Remove seats, strip them partial, then lay in the elements held in by tape, put seats back together, run the wiring, reinstall the seats.

So if you can remove the seat cover should be no problem at all.

[kpaske]

Well, searching online, I found a lot of Recaro Trend seats with heating and electric height/recline adjustments for about $1575 EACH.

So, for $3150 plus shipping, you could get some killer new seats.

Ahem.

Ahah! Are they aftermarket replacement seats, or did they come stock in something? I'm thinking "junk yard search".

[PHO2GR4]

Good question. I found them as aftermarket replacements, but I wonder if a junkyard might have some of those Porsche or Audi seats collecting dust?

Also, I couldn't find ANY aftermarket Trends with the exact same red-n-black layout as my stock VX seats...

[kpaske]

But there ARE companies who make "Seat Skins" - there was another thread a while back where we discussed this option. If we could find some old Porsche or Audi seats with the motors and switches intact, we could recover them ourselves (and get custom materials and colors to boot!). Even if the seats weren't originally heated, it sounds like it would be pretty easy to add the heaters in at the same time.

The next question is, if we find some old seats, will they bolt up to the same mounting points? Can we hybridize our existing seats (i.e. install the old motorized parts in our seats or pull the mounting base off our original seats and use them to install the recovered seats)? It would be nice if we could find a set of seats that were plug and play, but that's probably wishful thinking.

[darkl4805]

http://www.rostra.com/seat-heater.htm

After doing some research I found positive reviews of Rostra products but couldn't find any detailed reviews on the Heizgerat that heatedseatkits.com sells.

Just ordered 2 of these. I spoke with the manufacturer and oddly enough they told me one of their distributors sells for a cheaper price than they do.

I bought them for $103.33 each + shipping (actual UPS rate, was told I'd get a call back tomorrow with the shipping cost). Part #250-1802.

For those of you interested, I ordered from Brandon Distributing (877-402-3944). They are located in MN.

I'll do a write-up and take some pictures for those interested. Hopefully I get these in time for next weekend and can get everything installed/working.

I'm thinking the best place for the buttons will be next to the Power/Winter buttons. Any better location suggestions?

[etlsport]

i took my mirror defroster button, put it in the space of the blank on the face of the dash, which leaves two blanks in the center console.. maybe get some stock buttons and put em in the blanks on the console