Heated Seats - 2010 Avalanche

[old-chevy-dude]

first off I will preface this by saying I don't fault GM on this at all. This serves more as a warning to guys in a similar situation to mine.

 

in 2003 I was involved in a major motorcycle accident that resulted severe injuries, I currently have several plates and screws in my pelvis, and a Titanium Right hip/femur as well as excessive nerve and circulation issues in my pelvic area and legs.

 

I have had heated seats in my past 2 vehicles, and I use them on a regular basis, even in summer as the heat helps circulation during extended drives or sitting in traffic..

 

 

the heated seats on my last car were mediocre at best, the HIGH setting was about equal to the low setting on the Avalanche and it timed out after 30 min so you had to manually restart it.

 

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well not really thinking about it I've been using the High setting on the AV, but I haven't done any extensive driving until yesterday so I never really noticed that the system doesn't time out and automatically turn off.. during a 2.5 hour drive I had the dual mode set on high the whole time, because of the nerve damage in my legs I never really felt it burning..

 

however when I went to exit the vehicle I noticed some great discomfort in the backs of my legs, it got worse over the next few hours.. when I got home and was getting ready for bed I mentioned the 'pain' to my GF, she looked and noticed that the backs of my legs were cherry red and blistering..

 

Went to the ER, I have mild first and second degree burns.

 

 

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today I was playing with the settings and I noticed with the BACK only setting the seat back gets very very hot on high, discomfort set in within a few minutes.. but in DUAL mode the seat back is mildly warm on high, but the seat cushion is very very hot. This appears to be true for both seats..

 

had the seat back been of equal heat to the seat bottom yesterday I would have noticed the excessive heat and turned it down.. but it appears in DUAL mod the bulk of the power/heat goes to the cushion, not the seat back..

 

lessons learned.. Pay attention to the amount of time the seat heaters are on, and only use the mid or low settings on DUAL mode..

[&CDFiXER%]

The heated seat kit GM offers for the Silverado (and probably similar SUV's, etc) also has the seat getting much hotter. I was pretty uncomfortable on the high settings after a short time but I have driven with just the seat upright on low for an extended period and that did not get close to burning.

 

The actual heating pads in the seat upright/back are half the size of the heaters in the seat. I mean physically they are half the size!

[ruggedlife]

hm... i know when i installed my aftermarket set the instructions strictly said not to install it in vehicles where the occupants had problems with nerves or sensing heat... i know the high mode in mine gets damn hot too i generally put it on high to get it to heat up faster then switch back to low..

[&CDFiXER%]

Hmm, I assume they have heating modes that have output that high 2 reasons: 1. People who complain about the seat not ehating upfast enough and 2) If you had coveralls on when you sat on these,you'd probably NEED the high setting to feel anything?