Remote Start / Heated Seats Issues

[pm26]

 

Nope the heated and cooled seats have the fan system you are speaking of. The heated only seats have a grid just under the seat fabric. It's seat fabric, heat grid, and foam cushion in that order. At least on mine anyway and all I have is heated seats.

And certain buyers also get free vibrating seats with either package.

[pm26]

I have a feeling that these heated/cooled seats would heat a lot better and more reliably if they just installed a $ 20, 500 Watt hair drier in each seat

[Canuck1]

OK so the dealer is going to check tomorrow and see what kind of volts are going to the seat heaters when they are turned on. Gm is saying they should see one volt at the connectors under the seat and if it shows one volt then it should work. One volt seems awfully low to heat the thing at -30c.

[pm26]

OK so the dealer is going to check tomorrow and see what kind of volts are going to the seat heaters when they are turned on. Gm is saying they should see one volt at the connectors under the seat and if it shows one volt then it should work. One volt seems awfully low to heat the thing at -30c.

One volt? Maybe they are measuring if voltage signal is present at the electronic module that controls the heaters? It is current in amperes that does the heating, not volts. Assuming a 12 Volt system, then what is relevant is the current draw by each heater element which will be at least 20 amps.

[emoerman]

Have the same issue with the non functioning heated drivers side seat(cooled seat option), dealer currently has parts on order. Having heated and cooled seats is not new to gm, I traded a 07 Escalade Ext to get this truck, it to had cooled seats, but those babies got nice and warm.

[Dnt]

Please continue to follow up I have given up on the issue at this point and am just accepting that the heated and cooled seat system is crap. BUT if there is something that they can do to improve it I would love to hear about it. My dealer says they are operating NORMAL......LOL anyone ever heard that before?

[Canuck1]

pm26 I am not sure why 1 volt is important but that is what GMs tech manual tells them to look for. It is -22c here this morning so maybe I can at least get them to agree that the seat does not heat with remote start and takes to long to produce any heat at all.

[Canuck1]

Here are the results. This was tested at the seat module. When started with the factory remote both circuits (left and right front seat) show 13.6 volts going to the seats, this is actually the high heat setting on the manual switch when the truck is started with the key,book says it should be on low heat. Asked the tech why the difference from what the book says, his reply was I don,t know but that is what we found. Ok so 13.6 volts when using the remote. They then checked with the truck turned on with the key and found low setting with the manual switch is 1.09volts, med setting is 6.5 volts, high setting is 13.6 volts. Ok so asked why do the seats take so long to heat up, answer was I don,t know as this is the only test we have at this time. Ok so I did ask if they know how many amps or even if he he knew how many watts the seat elements the heaters were rated at, reply was no they (GM) do not give them that info. Ok they can not tell me what they do not know that is fair. Ok that is all they can do as the seats are working as designed and dealers do not design these things. They did say I was not the first to complain but I was the first one to have this check done so I had to thank them for that. I asked what they thought a fix may be and they did say a heating element is probably rated at so many watts and with enough complaints it will probably change in the new trucks. Ok so we know there is no replacement for the element at this time so I guess I live with it. Dealer service was great but they can not fix what GM screwed up.End of story.

[Doug_Scott]

You can figure out the wattage of the heating element pretty easily if you have the resistance and the voltage. Use an ohmmeter and remove the connector from the seat element. Measure the resistance of the element.

Using numbers I made up:

 

Volts = 13.2

Resistance = 1000

 

Using these 2 numbers in the following formulas(equations):

 

amps = volts / resistance
wattage = volts x amps

 

13.2v / 1000ohm = 0.0132amps
13.2v x 0.0132amps = 0.17424 watts

 

It is a two step operation to get watts. You first need volts and ohms to get amps, then using volts and amps you get watts.

[Dnt]

Glad people are still following up. I am sure it is a Delphi issue the design committee probably thought this would be just fine. Lack of real world testing other than the customers themselves. Testing Testing Testing 123 Houston we have FEEDBACK from the Testing group now "these so called heated and cooled seats are not worth a chit" LOL NOTE: Fords heated and cooled seat system works MUCH BETTER very embarrassing for the

GM design team.

[pm26]

Is GM going to recall all these heated and cooled seats, remove them from vehicles and give each owner a $ 100 bill? You know, like they did with the windshield washer heater.

[Batcat]

Well I got the final answer, the seats do not heat to a preceptible level until someones butt is in the seat. This is by design. GM is overly caustiuos because of possible fire threat in an unoccupied vehicle during remote start (or something like that -- seams every time I complain about this I get a different answer for the reason they designed it that way). I wouldn't hold my breath, I dont think GM will do anything about it for us unlucky folks that jumped on the 1st production year of the new design. My dealer said they are getting a bunch of complaints and thinks GM will most likely fix this in the next year models. Us 2014 guys just have to be tough and indure the cold butts and write it off as experience. DO NOT buy the 1st year production. I know that, but fell for the looks of this truck. Fell for the pretty face. When will I learn.

What I can't figure is how the Ford and Dodge guys figured this out as my brother has a new Ford Platinum and my business partner has a Ram Longhorn. Both have heat/cool seats and nice warm seats are waiting when you get in during a remote start. Are our GM design guys just that inept. Wow what a scary thought. Wonder what other design flaws are lurking.

[Canuck1]

OK so it looks like there isn,t a whole lot more info to gather on seat heaters not working the way we expect them to. The design is not up to the job and that's all their is to it, thanks GM. Someone at Gm said that should be good enough put them in, I don,t for a minute believe it was a safety issue, it was a cost issue period. So complain to the dealers all you want but they can,t fix what GM screwed up. I,ll guess the 2015,s or 2016,s will see an improvement but anyone with a 2014 is out of luck because it isn,t a safety issue. This is just another example of testing new vehicles on paper with a pencil and hoping for the best.

[nitroduck]

I see this topic is still going strong. I can add a brief explanation (note I have heat only seat). The electric resistive heating elements warm objects (your butt) via radiant energy. If there isn't an object to absorb the energy from the resistive heaters the energy is dissipated into the cab of the truck. The amount of energy (watts) these heaters produce is so low that it is lost very quickly if you're not sitting on the seat. The radiant energy the heaters produce will actually add "some" heat to the cab but it is so quickly lost to the heat loss of the cab you would never notice it. So basically the seat heaters are working (at least mine are) but you need to sit in them for a minute to feel them. I have found not all seat heaters are the same, my Ford F250 uses some kind of heat pump that produces a ton more heat than little 12v electric resistive heaters. When I first got my Silverado I thought the seat heaters were not working either (being used to my Ford seats), I have access to a thermal imaging camera and sure enough they were working.

[pm26]

Maybe a hot water bottle would be more effective?