Got lucky...heated rear seats
 

I was messing around with my X over the weekend and pulled the blank covers off where the heated rear seat switches are suposed to go if so equipped.

The plug and harness for the switch was there so I thought to myself, nice they prewire the car for heated rears which I don't have.......
For the hell of it, I pulled the rear seat and the harness contines to the seats AND.......to the matching plug on the rear seat.

Bought two switches and now have rear heated, no kids to sit in them but nice anyway.....

I can only assume the car was supposed to get the rear seat option and somone switched the build on the car mid line. Rather than pulling the leather, the factory just left it in and pulled the switches.

This happen to anyone else, its gotta be a rare fluke??

what year and build date is yours?

Wow Can you do this an any X5. Mine is an 04 4.4. It would be nice to have. Can you explain in a little more detail. How you did this and also do you have the part numbers you bought to do this.
thanks in advance

I am considering trading mine in for a 2004 build date 1/04 and it has:

Sport Package
Sliding Load Floor
Sport Package
Park Distance Control
Navigation System
Premium hi-fi System
19" Alloy Wheels
Cold Weather Package
Premium Package
Rear Climate Package

one of the things I did not like is the fact that it does not have rear heated seats

yeas peter can you please help us out. i would greatly appreciate it. where do i start and what do i look for

I think he just popped out the cover where the rear heated seats buttons would be and found the plugs,

thanks. im checking tonight

The key is to check the rear seats to see if there a harness plugged into them.

Hmm..where would the seat be plugged in? I don't have this option so I don't know if it's the back or the bottom, I assume it's the bottom of the seat

The heating elements are on bottom and back of seat.

How do you remove the blank covers? I wanted to mount a switch to turn off/on each TV in my headrest. Do I just use a small flat head and pry a corner up?

When were rear heated seats first offered??

cool, i`ll have to check my x to see if i get lucky too.

where would the heated seat buttons be located? On the rear of the center console w/vents?

yes !

I just checked out my '01 3.0i (build of 9/00). I have one set of wires in that area and I think they are for the Cig lighter. So doesn't appear I was the lucky recipient either! RATS!

It would be nice if we knew what the plug looks like and some instructions on what to do to look for it...

can this be plugged inti my 4.4i 2003

thats interesting.. i alreday have heated rear seats but does that mean i payed extra money for nothing... hmmm... interesting

how do i take the rear seat bottoms out to check.

There are 2 snap in clips(2 outboard passengers, between legs position) for the rear seat bottom cushion. Locate between the carpet floor and the bottom seat cushion. Put your hand in between and pull the bottom seat cushion up towards you. That's the easy way to check without crack open the switch cover. Check under the bottom of the seat for any sign of heating plug in.

I would like to know that too; so would everyone else.

Could you be a little bit more specific?

Peter think you can post pictures of the process?

Basically pull the bottom of the seat up until the seat unclips from the base. There are 2 clips, about a quarter to a third of the way in from the sides of the seat. You have to pull fairly forcefully to unclip the seat. Just checked my seats today, saw some wires, but didn't look like there was any plug on the bottom of the cushion, so I think Pete got lucky. I'll check again this weekend and see if there is a plug at the back of the seat cushion where it meets the backrest.

For those who do have rear heated seats already; can you post a picture of the harness from the seat?

Yeah, or can the original poster please post some pics? Otherwise, I'm calling bullshit on this.

JV

:iagree:

This is what I found...

Thanks for the pics. Can you explain where/what we're looking at here?

JV

The first pic is on the rear drivers side. No idea what it is. But it does have leads to the other pic; which there are two harnesses. I believe these are for the heated seats. However I don't have any harnesses leading from the seat.

I think if there were leads from the seat; then it would work to plug in. I traced the wires from the first pic and they lead under the carpet all the way to the rear blower where the buttons should be. There is one harness on each side... Hope this helps.

Right on. Thanks for explaining.

JV

I have the same harness on my 01 with heated fronts but nothing on the bottom rear seat cushion to plug them into.

I guess only one of us got lucky. :(

I checked and also have the harness under my rear seats that's not connected to anything.

Now the question is can we become lucky if we have this? Do I only need the rear cushion with the heating elements and switches to make this work?:confused:

I think so; it would be nice someone can take a pic of what there setup for rear heated seats looks like (hint, hint).

Hmm, I believe it's not even available at all in the 3.0. Probably a lost cause...

Sorry to have not replied to questions since my original post. I've been out of the country on a work assignment since shortly after the post.

I wish I could offer better explanation or description than I did in the original post, but what I stated there, pretty much sums it up.

I can only assume a couple of things, the car was destined for heated rears and they changed the build mid stream to non-heated and path or least resistance was to leave the leather and pull the switches to theoretically delete the option, or the factory forgot to put the switches in and no one ever noticed that the option wasnt there.

Another thought is the original owner (I am not the original owner of my X I bought it with 7k on it from a BMW store) had the heated seat switches pulled for some reason, maybe kids playing with them.

At any rate, I didnt mean to stir up such controversy over my s..t luck. Since I had to be out of the country, I let my son take the X back to school, he's going to trailer his struff back at the end of this semester when he graduates. I'll glady post a picture at that time but the photos posted by others seem to depict the correct harness, and in my case, I had wire from the seat bottom plugged into the plug in the harness.

When I popped out the blank and saw the plugs sitting right behind both blanks, I simply thought that they used a universal harness and it was just curiosity that let me to look to see of the harness was under the seat.

I wish i could offer more but it is, what it is.....

hmm...