Range Rover Adapted X5 Heated Seat Element Repair

[X5SND]

Guys I've been absent from here as of late, but I come back bearing gifts! (Well sort of)

What follows is another solution to a problem many of us have been plagued by: Front heated seat bottoms that don't work or partially work...or give you a flaming leg!

Before I get started though I would like to thank Turbo_Bimmer for his previous thread (found here: http://www.xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-foru...ement-diy.html) and some of the leg work he put in that allowed me to quickly recognize the necessary wires on the heated seat.

Where my solution differs is that I wanted something that would also heat the bolster.....low and behold while cruising the interweb for some Range Rover parts stumbled across an answer. Land Rover offers replacement elements that simply stick onto the foam seat bottom!!

What you need:

Heated Seat Element: Land Rover Part # HGL000040 (~$70)
3M Spray Adhesive (Super 77)
Heat shrink
Soldering Iron
Scissors
Bull rings & pliers (or an upholsterer if you're lazy like me)

I'm not going to bother with seat removal/ disassembly as those are already mentioned in previous threads.

So this is what you start with:



When you overlay it on the seat bottom you get something like this:



...but we need to do some trimming to "fit" it to the X. It helps if you put it against a window/glass table with light under to ensure you don't cut the element.

The element is wrapped around in a continuous wire like so (already started trimming at this point):



Basically because of the slightly different seat contour you need to cut 6 spots for bull rings on the lateral seams, as well as widen the long cuts between the center & bolsters. You can also either trim off the excess foam from over the bolster or wrap it over the edge.

Lastly, remove LR's themal resistor as we want the BMW one sewn into the seat controlling the element. Simply peel it out, and join the two red wires together.

You get something like this once the thing is all trimmed up and glued down:




As far as wiring goes, simply connect the red wire of the element to the Green/violet wire of the seat while the black of the element gets spliced into the brown. The grey wire going to the leather remains intact as that's the temp control.

Boom. Heated seat fixed!

-S