Factory Heated Seats Failure

Nope. It’s only a few minutes. A few clips and some Velcro and the material is removed.

 

Be my guest then. It’s still a waste of time.

 

Called Toyota Canada today and reported my seat heater fire hazard to them. I got a case number. They didn’t seem too concerned about it. I mentioned that many others have this same issue. I have an appointment at the dealership tomorrow and will address my concerns with them as well. I guess I’m going to have to call the MTO (ministry of transportation) as well and voice my concerns there. Maybe will light a fire under their asses! My truck is well out of warranty.

 

Also filed a complaint with transport canada

 

Anyone in Canada should be reporting this issue to Transport Canada asap. This should be considered a recall.

 

So I showed the burned up connector to the dealer. They wouldn’t do anything about it. I checked to see how much the replacement parts were. They quoted me over $300 for the heating element and the controller. I guess I’ll be without a heated driver’s seat for a bit. Anyone know if there’s an aftermarket replacement?

 

The dealership wanted $240 for the part, and $400 for labor. I am pretty handy and thought, “how hard can it be to disassemble this seat and put it back together?” My wife said, “I’d just pay them to do it.” Why is she always right?

Six hours, some pretty course language, and very sore hands from fighting foam getting the wire upholstery hogs reconnected, it does work again.

 

There were hog rings in that seat? I thought it would just have had Velcro. I haven’t taken mine apart yet. I usually charge about 2 hours labour to do a seat repair. That’s to take the upholstery off and repair or replace one section of the seat and reassemble. I guess I’m a little faster than the average guy because I’ve done it a few times.

 

There probably a dozen hog rings in the middle at the seams I imagine those are easier with a couple pair of special pliers, I was just making due with two pairs of needle nose.

 

And I wasted a fair bit of time trying to be creative and thread the ribs through the hogs like pulling wires.

 

I dunno, this vid may of helped?

https://youtu.be/rSvVPD6nuME

 

Yes if you had a pair of hog ring pliers and a few new hog rings, it would have been a snap. I wasn’t thinking that they would have used those on a newer seat. Most modern seats just have Velcro sewn into the bottom of the material and some strips glued to the foam. Much easier that way.

 

I've never seen a Toyota that didn't use hog rings for the upholstery. The Tacoma uses about 22 hog rings per seat.

Jeff

 

I'm now part of the many with the same issue.

2018 Limited. Drivers side was intermittent last winter, now it's dead.

I had the small black retaining clip on mine. But good burn marks on the green wire. After removing the black clip, I still cannot unplug the AMP....seems to be melted together!!!! (I know to push down on lock clip on molex ). I don't want to try and pry it apart before filing a complaint with Tacoma.

Why haven't they properly addressed and corrected this by now?

I'll call this morning and post updates.

 

I broke the connector taking it apart. One of the male pieces of the plug got stuck in the amp on mine. You need to file a complaint with Toyota. The dealer will do nothing unless you are in the US and still under the factory warranty. With a 2018, your warranty is most likely over.

 

If it was a voltage drop issue the controller would get fried not the connector. Since the connector is frying it’s an amperage issue.

my guess is the connector is marginal for the current rating and as they get old and corrode slightly the resistance across the contacts increases.

For those who have not yet had the problem I wonder if cleaning the contacts and getting some conductive coating on there wouldn’t help prevent the issue

 

Seems like a lot of work for a seat heater... not even worth the deductible, let alone headache. I know you're probably joking but im sure OP at least considered it...hahaha. Now if my engine takes a shit, you best bet my brakes are gonna fail as im driving on a bridge.

 

That could be the case but the FET is frying with enough pics in this thread showing it to raise flags. The excess heat builds in the pcb trace and terminal connected to it rather than the unregulated terminals. Higher rated terminals might help, maybe, that and some separation from the module using thicker wire would help more. The module itself should have been designed with a finned aluminum case like some aftermarket modules which don’t have this problem even though they cost much less, not that they don’t suffer other inadequacies.

 

the only pictures I have seen here have burned connectors. The case itself should be melted if the fet itself was overheating. Yes, it could follow the trace but the fet itself is hot too.

Edit: I’m wrong. look at the pictures again before you comment dumb dumb. See below

 

Blegh, the first post showed the burned up chips, you are right. It had been a while since I looked and only remembered later posts. You are right