I turn on the heated seats and they dont get hot! does it have to be winter? i want to test them - to make sure they are working.... so i turn on the air conditioner.. and then try the heated seats.. they dont feel hot at all!

anybody else have this problem?

Jon

 

but the rx8 seats work in conjunction with the ambient air temperature. I don't exactly know at what temperature they kick in but if it's cold outside then they work perfect. But if it is warm/hot outside they will not work.

Anyone else agree? disagree? This is what I have found in my car. Maybe something is wrong with my seats too if someone disagrees.

 

Hisakata is absolutely right. The buttwarmers don't do squat when it's warm out, but they're great when it's cold.

 

Are you sure you even have the heated seat option? :D

 

What a great feature. Heated seats that won't turn on in warm temperature!

I have a maxima, once in a while, I accidentally hit the seat warmers. I get toasted butt even in summer.

That's pretty good common sense engineering....

 

I reportd this to Mazda shortly after I bought my car in August 2003, they said the heated seats warm up to 96 degres and then shut down.

They are pretty much useless unless you live in a REALLY cold climate.

 

this all explains it!
thanks.
jon

 

i just noticed this morning that the seats get hotter when you have the air flow at your feet.i guees mazda figured if your feets cold your *** must be also.

 

The Seats Have Sensors In Them So If No One Is Sitting In The Seat Then They Wont Go On. Neat Eah?

 

Nope. Not according to the factory service manual.

 

Mine work just great. One day I had a too-thin jacket and they kept my kidneys toasty warm too. I notice that once the passenger compartment warms up they seem to turn off, so there must be some mechanism to regulate the heat, whether thermostat or sumthin. They were nice on the 30F days, but a Godsend when it dipped to 10F yesterday. I assume they won't work at all in warm weather, which makes sense. And the seats don't really get hot, just nice & warm.

 

All I know is if they could transfer the heat from the center console to the seats, everyone would have heated seats.

On a serious note, I am 99% sure the heated seats are designed to not come on when the AC is on. Run the AC to cool down your car and your seats, then try again.

Woo Hoo, big Post #200. I feel old already, and I haven't touched most of the people here. :D

 

Not sure how this relates, but my heated seats don't really kick in until I start driving the car (probably due to the air flow as described earlier).

I can let my car idle 2, 5, 10 minutes nothing. As soon as I hit the accelerator, the seats really start to warm.

 

I seem to remember a study reported last year about the effectiveness of non-functional thermostats in offices. To save energy the company in question simply substituted fake thermostats and associated thermometers in selected office settings. As long as workers were able to adjust the thermostats and judge the effectiveness of their efforts by looking at the associated thermometer, the complaints about the office being too warm/cold dropped to zero.

I suspect that this approach may be applicable to the current discussion.

 

Good point about the ambient temperature having something to do with the heated seats. I did notice a few weeks ago when I started using the heated seats that they felt warmer if I turned the fan speed up. Last week the ambient temperature read -24 degrees C or -6 degrees F and my *** was cooking!! My car wasn't pushing too much heat out as the car wasn't at full operating temps yet and I actually felt cold except for my *** and back through a pretty heavy winter coat. It's been warmer since and I have not felt it that hot since.

 

Just what temperature range do the sensors in the heated seats consider to be warm?

 

From service manual it looks like if seat warmer sensor temp is < 82F, heating element on and if sensor temp is > 99F, element is off.

 

At first I was a little disappointed that there is only "on" and "off" and no scaling. Then I realized these things are "intelligent". I like this feature a lot, I open the roof or window a little at low temperatures and the heater kicks in. Now I practically have the seat heater constantly on in the winter, other cars would probably grill me ...

 

That must be, because when I am not setting in them, I don't feel any heat... :p

 

They must work pretty well - it was about 40 yesterday when I took someone to lunch. The passenger side switch was accidentally turned on, and after a while he said "my *** feels hot - does this thing have heated seats"? :D

 

Im new to the board, but I thought the same thing. my seats barely get warm