Aftermarket heated seat warmers

[tekkie]

Anyone have any experience with such a thing? looks like these have decent reviews in the UK at least. http://www.waeco.com/ae/products/438...rtOrigID=67405

clearly not as good as OEM but OEM is damn expensive considering you have to buy the harness, the HVAC module and then either swap seats or buy the OEM kit which is crazy expensive. Not to mention the work involved in that.

The hard part will be getting the seats apart and back together I imagine, I have the suede inserts so I would suspect they are easier to deal with than full leather at least (but I could be wrong). Anyone have any experience doing such a thing and if its a royal pain? I suspect yes but for 200 bucks I am damn tempted to try this.

Before I purchased the car it was listed as having front/rear seats so I thought I had them. I had already paid cash for it and traveled for nearly 20hrs (France to Detroit to Cleveland) by the time I took 2 planes and drove to the dealership and got there minutes before they closed to pick it up. I inspected everything but didnt notice they were not there until an hour into my drive home :( I had reviewed all the pictures ahead of time but never caught this. I noticed one of the tires was different than the others and made them change that lol but this part escaped me.

Aside from ripping the seat apart it looks like these are easy to work with, have 3 settings & temp guards, can be resized a little if needed. I imagine you could put the buttons right into the seat or put them into the stock location, or in the center console ... wherever. I would probably put them in the side of the seat just so it doesn't appear so non stock. You could probably wire it into the stock controller but that is probably more work than its worth lol

[tekkie]

I did a ton more reading today, to do add the stock heating is about 1000 for the elements, another 80 for the wire harness and a climate module around 100 from ebay, so lets say 1200. For that price its easier to just buy used seats but finding those is another challenge. Mine are mint so the chances of finding others like that are slim, i found one pair on car-part but wrong color. If it was not recaros the elements would be about 1/2 that and the oem parts would be more attractive.

I cant find any negative experiences with the Waecos and there are many other systems on ebay / amazon and some of them have good reviews but many with no reviews. I contacted a guy in the UK today and the Waecos would be 135 pound shipped so about 225 US. The main thing i see these having that the others dont, or at least dont mention is the temp guards which will hopefully avoid burning it to the ground lol.

[quattroism25]

No heated seats is the one thing I really dislike in my car. Price considered the only way I'd put those elements in is if I was reupholstering the seats to begin with. But like yours my seats are in good shape so thats out of the question. Just keep looking for used seats in good condition.

[dparm]

Either buy used seats or leave it be. Aftermarket seat heaters sound like a fire waiting to happen. Maybe Shokan has a wrecked S4 you can buy the seats from.

[tekkie]

Yeah but by the time you buy those / pay shipping and then the hassle of selling yours it wont be fun :( but it would be the easiest solution though. I sent them a request to see at least to look into it.

Looking into videos on how to do this it doest look to difficult but it would be a full days work to do both fronts i am sure. My main concern is doing it and not ripping something, i am not to concerned about the safety of the electronics. I found diagrams that show all of the hog rings and there are alot of them as you would expect but the tool / rings are cheap.

The diagrams on alldatadiy make it look not so difficult ....but isnt that always the case lol

[tekkie]

I found a video on how to install them in a TT, doesnt look to bad at all actually

http://youtu.be/vlB20dy7wD0

[mankytron]

I would think the aftermarket heaters work well, but it would be nice to keep it oem. An other option would be to get the hvac and seats out of a wrecked a4. These seats could be had for a fraction of the cost of used recaros. Then swap the elements into your seats. I believe the factory elements are different in the recaros due the the bolstering but the a4 style would still get you heat on you back and rear end for a reasonable cost.

[tekkie]

As you said the elements are different, i already looked at the A4 elements as those are cheaper but i doubt they would work by the look of the pictures.

[seadoo2006]

Either buy used seats or leave it be. Aftermarket seat heaters sound like a fire waiting to happen. Maybe Shokan has a wrecked S4 you can buy the seats from.

Heh ... OEM Audi seats are always a fire ready to happen ... I should tell you about the time my B6 A4's seats caught fire burning a half-dollar sized hole in my seat, through my clothes, and into my leg ... all told, the settlement offer was pretty cool, but yeah, VAG isn't exactly known for stellar seat warmer safety either. IIRC, the VW side of things had a pretty massive recall on them.

[Baggio]

Heh ... OEM Audi seats are always a fire ready to happen ... I should tell you about the time my B6 A4's seats caught fire burning a half-dollar sized hole in my seat, through my clothes, and into my leg ... all told, the settlement offer was pretty cool, but yeah, VAG isn't exactly known for stellar seat warmer safety either. IIRC, the VW side of things had a pretty massive recall on them.

I never go above 3 on the seat heaters. I couldn't imagine what 6 is like. I can see how it could be a fire hazard, based on the temp level on 3.

[BCsniper]

yupp, that's what I've always heard about them. I actually like that they get super hot. Warms your ass up quick, and if your seats are really warn out just leave them on full blast since there have been numerous instances of them starting to catch fire and melt the seats and even the person sitting in them as seadoo2006 says.

[tekkie]

Thats why i am not overly concerned about these aftermarket ones, i am guessing they are as safe or safer than the oem ones lol

[seadoo2006]

yupp, that's what I've always heard about them. I actually like that they get super hot. Warms your ass up quick, and if your seats are really warn out just leave them on full blast since there have been numerous instances of them starting to catch fire and melt the seats and even the person sitting in them as seadoo2006 says.

Yeah, I luckily had my underarmor on the seat, so I smelled the burning material ... because of my jeans, I didn't think anything of it until the material melted through my jeans and into my leg ... needless to say, trying to pull over and brake on the freeway while your pants are in fire can be rather absurd ... That yellow/brown you see is the singed underarmor material.

[tekkie]

Wow thats nuts, you may want to upgrade to fireproof under armour lol. Glad you were not seriously injured.

[mankytron]

As you said the elements are different, i already looked at the A4 elements as those are cheaper but i doubt they would work by the look of the pictures.

Do you think they would be still easier to install then the generic ones, what about them looks like they would not work?

[seadoo2006]

Wow thats nuts, you may want to upgrade to fireproof under armour lol. Glad you were not seriously injured.

Yeah, I have to give Audi of America credit though ... they were all over it after I called them ... 120k on an 9 year old 2002 A4 and they hooked me up with a new seat, a rental for two weeks, and a few hundred bucks for new clothes. Probably could've asked for more, but I wasn't trying to make anything off of them. Their customer support on a 9 year old car was excellent (granted, I'm sure it was to avoid a lawsuit).

[sea_shackF1]

On OEM seats the 6 setting gets VERY hot. I would only put it there to warm up the seats quicker when it's very cold then turn it down. 2 is all that's needs once warm.

OP, it seems like a ton of time and money. Seat heaters are very nice, but there is no way I would put that much effort into them. You may feel different though. If not having seat heaters is all that you missed or the only problem with the car after buying it sight unseen from another country then I'd say you did OK.

Wow Seadoo2006 that's a crazy story. Trying to safely pull over while figuring out what is hell is happening wouldn't be fun.

[tekkie]

Do you think they would be still easier to install then the generic ones, what about them looks like they would not work?

From some pictures i saw the problem would be no openings / cuts to put the hog rings. However i saw some other photos that has me wondering if its not possible. I realized also I missed some parts if i wanted to do new, there are sensors & wiring inside the seat also.

[tekkie]

Yeah, I have to give Audi of America credit though ... they were all over it after I called them ... 120k on an 9 year old 2002 A4 and they hooked me up with a new seat, a rental for two weeks, and a few hundred bucks for new clothes. Probably could've asked for more, but I wasn't trying to make anything off of them. Their customer support on a 9 year old car was excellent (granted, I'm sure it was to avoid a lawsuit).

I am sure your right, its sad that this world has come to exploiting everybodys mistakes so good for you for not being another one of those turds. Although i would have been tempted to ask for a V12 R8 LOL