Howdy,
I love the heated seats in my 02 Supercrew, but they only have one setting: inferno. I can only keep it on for about a minute before it gets really really hot. I'm afraid the seat will combust with me sitting behind the wheel! Is this normal? Does anyone know of a way to regulate the thermal output of the heater element?
Thanks in advance.

BTW, I already searched the electrical forum, and didn't find anything to answer my question.

 

lol im sorry that had to be one the funniest posts ive seem. inferno lol. is there a switch like a power window type one? those get sloppy after a while sometimes wont stop making contact. im just throwing out guesses.

 

Mine aren't that hot however, after a few minutes I smell bacon.

 

Try wearing 2 pairs of pants..maybe you'll get twice as much heating time outta it ;-)

 

lol lol lol. someone has to help this guy ....steve83 is pretty knowledgable on most things.

 

ok ok ok, maybe 2 pairs of pants wont work long enough. I just talked to a tech over at ford and he said you should bring it in if it is overheating. He told me there are no adjustments..
Anyone know if this is true?

 

If the dealer says there's no problem because he can't duplicate, bend over drop'em and show him the griddle marks.

 

I don't know if the FX4 is cloth, my '01 XLT had heated seats, and I could onyl keep them on for a few min, before I thought I was going up in smoke. It is as if they used the same heating element with leather and cloth.

If they say thay are installed correctly, and nothing they can do about it, let us know. You can install a DIY hi - low heat setting, or maybe an adjustable.

With heated riding gear on motorcycles some will got with a hi-lo switch made with a 5 or 10 W ( depending on what they are using it with ) resistor inline on the lo circuit side. This is a voltage drop circuit, where if the resistor is the same resistance as the seat, will cut the voltage in half to teh seat element, and thus lower the wattage by half. Kind of what they build into the 04+ heated seats now.

The other option might be a Heattroller, which is a varriable controller ( rehiostat ). I have a dual heat-troller on my ZG for my gloves / socks circuit, and the other is the jacket liner. This depends on the wattage of the seat element, I have no idea what it is on the '99-'03 MY's.

Let us know what the dealer says about them. Hope they do not have a few paths with problems, which could be causing a high resistance circuit, which could be why they are so bloody hot.

Good luck.

 

I have the heated Leather seats in my 2002 Lariat 4x2 Supercrew.
Yes these seats are very HOTTTT.... Dealer Service looked into it and stated they were fine.

I asked one of the sales managers to try them out, he was wearing dress shirt ( no coat or jacket) like I was and he nearly jumped off the seat saying something was wrong. Both the drivers and passengers seat were affected. Service replaced the modules and they still heated the same (HOTTT). Service guys always had on "more" layers of clothing as I would have a long commute to work and would keep my coat in the back seat.

Ordered the truck new and the seats are still working. Leather does not seem to be adversly affected yet. I do enjoy when guests try the seats for the first time .....

 

hahaha im sorry but that is the best friggin title i have seen on here yet. keep em comin! lol!!!

 

A quote from SSCULLY -
"With heated riding gear on motorcycles some will got with a hi-lo switch made with a 5 or 10 W ( depending on what they are using it with ) resistor inline on the lo circuit side. This is a voltage drop circuit, where if the resistor is the same resistance as the seat, will cut the voltage in half to teh seat element, and thus lower the wattage by half. Kind of what they build into the 04+ heated seats now."

I like SSCULLY's idea of an inline resistor to reduce power to the seat heater but matching the resistor size to size of the one in the seat will not cut the heater's output by half but will instead cut it to 1/4!!! By doubling the resistance of the circuit you cut the total current to 1/2 as seen by the equation I = V/R (I=current, V=voltage, R=resistance). But the power or heat output of the resistor in the seat is equal to I squared times R or Power = I^2 X R. Adjust the resistor size accordingly.

 

I'll have to write it out long hand. Resistors in series, voltage drop over each is the ratio of the resistance to the total circuit.

If the seats were 5 Ohms ( taking a value out of the air, not actual ) adding a 5 Ohm ( 10 Watt ) resistor in series, the voltage over each resistor is ?
In my head I came with up 6 volts each, from Kirchoff's Law.
Resistors in series the current is the same through all.
With the example above, 5 Ohms heats, 12 V system
V=IR
12=I*5
12/5=I
2.4 =I
P=VI
P=12*2.4
P=28.8 watts

Adding a 5 Ohm resistor to the circuit, each resistor would still have 2.4 AMPS.
Now with the voltage cut in half,
P=VI
P=6*2.4
P=14.4 Watts.

This is if I recall the 80's correctly, I think I have Kirchoff's law correct, series voltage is the ratio over all, current the same. Resistors in Parallel is the voltage is the same, current is the ratio of the resistos.
OUCH !!! I think I pulled a brain cell