When I test drove my new to me 2008 F350 the heated seats worked. Fast forward a week after I buy it and no more heated seats! It has taken me 3 months to get the courage to tear into my seats but tonight I did it and I am glad to have working seats again. Below is my write up with pictures for those that want to take this project on. It took me 3 hours from the time I removed the seat from pickup until I went for test drive me everything in between. It's not that bad of a project.

First you need an 18MM socket to take the seat out of the pickup. 3 bolts and 1 stud/nut combo. With the seat removed I threw it up on my roller cart for ease to work on. You also have to un-plug the wire for the seat belt reminder and the power seat motors. Then I just left the harness with the seat.

Next off the list is to remove the seat mounts from the seat to get room to get the seat cover off. This takes a 10MM socket for 3 of the bolts and 1 10MM wrench for one that is kind of hidden.



Next I removed the cover on the left hand side with tilt/lumbar/power controls. You have to pull the lumbar **** off, then snap off the black plastic off and un-hook the connector for the power controls. The two screws and two clips hold on the red plastic on to the seat.





Next was the tilt bracket on the left hand side, it takes a 12MM socket to take the two bolts out. This needs to come off to get the seat cover off.



With everything out of the way the seat cover can now come off. I started with the front and used a screw driver to pry the seat cover over the metal frame. Then the two sides. It took a little bit of work to get the front one off but with the pressure off the seat the sides came off good.




With the sides of the seat cover off it exposes the hog rings that hold the flat part of the seat cover down. There must be 12-15 of these to get off to pull the seat cover off enough to get to the heating pad. There is a small diameter metal rod en-beaded into the form that the hog rings tie the seat cover too.



With the hog rings removed I could pull the seat cover back, I did not remove it from the seat just far enough back to get to heating pad.



Old wore out heating pad.



Picture of the old and new heating pad. I went with an aftermarket heating pads, this was a complete kit with wire harness, switches, pads, hog rings, ect.... everything to put in a non heated seat. I only went this way as they were way less expensive and most people agree they work better than the OEM Ford.



New pad installed. They have self sticking adhesive on back side.



Next I installed the seat cover with new hog rings, no pictures as I needed both hands to hold the cover down and get the hog rings on.

Now onto the rear cover. Way easier, as there is only a long snap clip holding the front and back side together. A long flat bladed screw driver got them un-hooked. Then velcro holds the flat part to the seat foam. I slid the cover up enough to get to the pad and removed.







Old and new heating pads together.



New heating pad installed on back.



Both seat covers re-installed.



I cut the connector off the factory heating pads and the harness form the seat pad kit and hooked them together. I wanted to retain the factory push button and not install the after market switch. With the harness made up I could plug the aftermarket heating pads into the Ford control relay.



Jumper harness made up complete with wire loom.



Harness all hooked up.



Now re-assemble everything. Put the seat base back on, hook up all the un-pluged wires, put the side plastic back on and and seat controls. I put the seat back in and took it for a drive to test the operation. All works and I am glad I kept the factory button control!





Jeff

 

Thank you for posting this.

 

What aftermarket heating parts did you use?

 

Dorman. I figure they make lots of replacement car parts so they would be decent quality. I wish the pads were slightly bigger to cover more area on the seat. Overall it works very well and I only spent $65 for the kit verses close to $200 for factory Ford.

Jeff

 

Great writeup. I did this job on a 1997 Range Rover and a 2002 Mercedes. In both cases, a wire in the heating grid had broken in the seat base, rather than the backrest. The design means that once the circuit is broken anywhere in the base grid or backrest grid, neither works. For me, I just located the wire that was broken, and spliced in a new short piece of similar gauge wire. This fixed the problem for next to nothing, just a lot of patience.

Newer Fords seem to use just the heated / cooled seats now...no longer a stand alone heated seat option. In this case, the pad is done away completely and replaced by basically an electric heater / cooler which blows hot or cold air out perforations in the seat. So far, the seat heater provides pleasant warmth on its maximum setting, but will not get "hot" like a traditional heated seat grid arrangement will. It also does not cover a large area. But, it shouldn't break when someone put a knee on the seat one too many times.

Thanks for posting this, should be very helpful to others.

 

Great writeup! Thanks for posting.

 

Great write-up. Reps sent your way. My drivers seat heating pad went south two seasons ago. I would imagine installation is identical on a 2006.

 

I would imagine it's darn close. It's really not a bad job. One thing I fogot to say is life would be a lot easier with good quality hog ring pliers. The ones that came in the pad set was just one notch above worthless but it was all I had.

Go a head and tackle this on your 06. Your butt will thank you!

Jeff