Seat heaters have gone out. Anyone have this happen?

I had both my driver's and passenger seat heaters go out. I took it to a local dealer for a diagnosis, and the quote I received was really high. Over 2k. They said they had to replace the heating elements and reupholster the seats.

I'm getting a new model and want to fix this, but I don't want to pay that price. Does anyone know if you can change the heating elements without reupholstery?

 

Uhh ya I’ve never reupholstered unless the material is burned.

I’d get it quoted elsewhere

 

DM me your VIN, and I can look up in the parts catalog, to see if the heater element is part of the seat cover, or separate.

 

Honestly if you are patient and have a warm place to work you can probably do it yourself. I'm assuming the heating element is the heater on the cushion (odd they would both fail at the same time but assuming that is correct) I don't know how the leather is fastened to the cushion but i'd say beyond basic hand tools you may need some "hog ring" and hog ring pliers at most.

What parts exactly are quoted on the sheet?

 

Stupid question: Did you check the fuses? Not just the fuses listed for the heated seats but ALL the fuses (Many of the fuses in these trucks have dual purposes that aren't always documented)

Bonus stupid question: Does the passenger heated seat work? If it doesn't the problem might not be the element on the driver side.

 

my dash buttons didnt respond when pushed last year, causing me to assume it was broke.... now? knock on wood, they both fire right up.

 

Both drive and passenger seat elements burning out at the same time sounds like too much of a coincidence. Is there power to the switches? Also, check your voltage at various RPM before installing new parts.

 

They didn't go out at the same time. One went out months ago. The other recently. I wonder where I can actually buy a pair of replacement seats used?

 

Wasn’t there a thing where some relay box for the seat heaters had a connection that wasn’t great and it would burn up the terminals? This was seen somewhere here and put in my Rolodex of Possible Issues in the Future but not immediately finding it..

 

car-part.com

 

i remember there was an issue with a box related to the seat heaters melting for early versions of the truck

 

Ya check the connection under the seats. Common for them to burn out right there. You’ll see it very easily. My driver side melted a few years back and I’ve never got around to making a new harness for it, yet complain every winter about it lol.

 

OP. My driver side went out over the winter. Independent mechanic quoted $1200 for parts and labor. What did you end up doing?

 

I haven't done anything yet but the best solution I've see so far is car-part.com listed above

 

This has been an issue since 2016 for the tacomas. A TSB was posted around 2018 but covered only certain models. My 2016 limited had the issue on the driver but wasn’t covered. I’m in Texas so it’s not often I use the heated seats. If you look on this forum there’s plenty of postings and even fixes to buy the part (used to be ~$25 or so) and solder on.