# Aftermarket heated seat users: switch location?



## Jim Frye (Mar 16, 2011)

The shops that advertise them on TV here mount the switch down on the outer side of the seats on the panel attached to the seat.


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## carbon02 (Feb 25, 2011)

I just did this, and I posted the How To in the Interior section. I placed the switches on the outer side of the seat near the bottom. Be careful when mounting the drivers seat if you have a power seat. Verify that there's enough room behind the switch before drilling the hole. There's not as much room behind the switch for clearance in the motorized seat.


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## machinist25 (Nov 10, 2014)

Great DIY. I'm planning on installing at least one seat over the long weekend. 


I was thinking about looking for a place on the center console for the switch. It could be convenient since I was going to tap power from the rear accessory port. My seat does have the motorized option.


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## carbon02 (Feb 25, 2011)

Machinist-

The website is not notifying me via e-mail when threads are updated, something must be going on. I have the center console still out of the car. I essentially used a Bussman add a circuit, and pulled a wire from the fuze box, at the fuze for the rear accessory port. 

Typing on this site with IE is givingme problems. I will post again


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## carbon02 (Feb 25, 2011)

To remove the console..

Lift up on the silver plastic around the shifter and remove. 
Remove little change cubby hole
Lift up all around both right and left kick panels at the bottom of the console. 
All the screws for the console are now accessable. I believe there's 6 of them, and they are 7 mm, they are very loose, a hand nut driver works well. 

Now looking in the passenger footwell you will see two wiring connections. One is like a USB connector. Lift up with an interior trim tool, or small screwdriver to remove the lock and pull apart. 

The other connection is an electrical connector, this actually has a "lock mechanism that folds over the connection. "Swing" the lock mechanism out of the way and the connector will open.

Lift the hand brake up, and at this point the entire console can be lifted up and removed. 

This exposes the ground location that's closest to the seats. Yea you could use a sheet metal screw and ground anywhere, but I like grounding to a factory ground that goes back to the battery. This is 10 mm in size.

If you're going to hard tap factory wires for power to the seats I think you could remove the rear accessory port without removal of the console, but then you'd have to find somewhere else to ground it.

Any questions ask. It's -5F here today, and I'm waiting until the weather warms up before I deal with removal and installation of the foot kick panels and the console. 

If you don't have a Harbor Freight Blue trim removal tool I'd suggest you get one. The shifter plastic is pretty thin. I left the wire connection to the traction control switch attached, and removed the phillips screws. That's the only electrical connection I couldn't figure out. As it's not Delphi, I think it's whatever they are using on the China Cruze, as all parts around the shifter are marked with Chinese inspection characters.


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## machinist25 (Nov 10, 2014)

I ordered my kit from Amazon and should have it Friday. I noticed in your writeup you expressed concern about heating the passenger occupancy sensor. Where did you end up installing the heating element?


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## carbon02 (Feb 25, 2011)

I used the Dorman Universal Kit, because it had good reviews on Amazon, and while it heats up within 1 minute in -5F, I'm a bit disappointed that the heating pad is a little smaller than the bottom of the seat. 

I did not place a heated element in the passenger seat bottom. I ended up just putting the element in he seat back.

I did the passenger seat first, because at that time there was no how-to on how to remove the seat fabric from the cushion. If I screwed up something I wanted it to be the passenger seat. 

I already had purchased a kit for each seat, and since I had the seat apart for the learning experience I decided to put just the back pad in the seat, and put it back together. 

Since you have pictures of how to get the seat apart, maybe you could do just the drivers seat and save some money. 

I ordered the Dorman kit from Rockauto, I'm not sure what manufactuers Amazon had. There were some aftermarket kits that were cheaper, and honestly if I was to do it again I may consider using them. The Dorman seat heaters do heat up quickly, but they are a little small for the seat. And the switch that Dorman uses is nearly identical to the other Chinese products. 

Will their heating pad hold up better, maybe.. Who knows.. But the seat throws the heat, provided you're sitting in it. Seems to be hotter than a 2013 Malibu with factory heated seats.


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## machinist25 (Nov 10, 2014)

I bought this kit:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008D2LIRG/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The connectors, harness, and wiring are of high quality. However the position of the connectors relative to the total wire lengths is very inconvenient. The switch, for instance, probably has a 5' total length lead on it. But of that the connector is installed after only a foot of wire from the switch; I would have preferred this to be the other way. The size of the pads is perfect: the width lets it fit perfectly between the velcro seams going up and down the seats, and the length covers the entire seat length. 

The installation was a breeze. I didn't even remove the seats. Removing all of the retaining clips from underneath easily let me slide the cloth upholstery over the cushion with more than enough clearance to install the heat pads. The Cruze's seats are much easier to retrofit than the videos you see with hogrings. Like you, I didn't install a heater on the passenger cushion out of concern for the passenger occupancy sensor. I'd love to know how the LTZ heats around the occupancy sensor.

I hardwired everything from the rear 20A accessory circuit. There was plenty of room in the center console to house the relays and wires, and the fuses are easily accessible by lifting the shift boot from the console.

I'm still on the fence about where to mount the switches.


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## carbon02 (Feb 25, 2011)

I looked at thatproduct, but I have a few questions for a new person who may be following thisthread.

Thepads that you installed, did they have slits in them to allow the plastic barsewn into the upolstery to get down to the black clips in the foam pad?

Or didyou cut slits where the heating element has to go around the upholstery barsthat run across the seat from left to right? 

TheDormans I used had a slot in the center of them. I still had to slightlytrim the slot a little bigger without cutting wires. If you cut a wire onthe Dorman, you killed the pad. What you bought is something different?

Whatis your ambient temperature, and how fast do they heat up on high?

Itlooks like the switch that is part of your kit, is nearly identical to theharness that I installed. Just different pads. I don't plan ondoing this job again, but I wonder if there's a difference in quality betweenthe pads you used at $60 for both seats, and the price I paid which was $60 foreach seat. 

Iguess time will tell. If the amazon product can work around theupholstery bars sewn into the fabric without cutting, this may be the productto use. As it's more area.


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## machinist25 (Nov 10, 2014)

I looked at several of these kits and suspect they all use the same three way switch. The heating pad quality looks good, but I have no basis for comparison. 4.5 stars with 116 reviewers on Amazon gives me reason to be confident. 

I actually tried installation two ways:

On the passengers seat backrest I cut slits for the black clips holding the cross members to the cushion. I saw pictures of OEM installations with slits cut, so I figured that as long as I don't cut all the wires I should still get current flowing through the honeycomb and heat. 

On the drivers side I tried just putting the pad right over the cushion - the pad goes right over the black clips. I was still able to lodge the plastic cross member into the channels. When the cover was reinstalled I see no difference between it and hte passenger seat, so I didn't bother cutting slits into these two. The velcro going lengthwise is still in place; it's probably why the seat still maintained its definition. If I don't think that the passenger backrest heats up as well as the uncut drivers, I'll use the last and unused pad to replace it. 

This week is supposed to be under 30 in the morning. I'll pay closer attention to heat up time.


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