OK all, I am going to dive into this today - sick of not being able to use my seat heater. Seat is coming out and I will be tearing it down in an attempt to fix it. Will take pics along the way.

my driver seat gets very hot as well, infact 1 bar is the only setting slightly bearable!

rear seats- folded the one side down and im assuming somehow the heater got pushed on(i was the only person in the vehicle so :dunno: )
http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j3...onda/005-1.jpg

long story short: bmw told me(this is the direct quote) " :nana2: "

the vehicle is a 4.6is dinan s3 and has been serviced at bmw since new, i also service my m5 a bmw(both are well out of warranty) i thought they would have treated me slightly better for being a loyal customer:rolleyes:

I rerely warm ma seat - hot climate and stuff however I still need to check it out as someone said you wouldnt want your seat go into flame while going at 140mph (234km/h)! Hell gee!

WOW! That's terrible. Unfortunately, being a faithful customer is like being a faithful employee nowadays - you're usually nothing more than a number on a sheet, so you've gotta look out for yourself everywhere you can. I've even tried to pull the "loyal customer" card back in the day and it never worked on my M5 myself, so that's what brought me to where I am now where I just do it all instead.

Finally received my replacement cushion and heating element - will get this put back together in the next few weeks and will post pics of all the work.

I'll be interested in that. How much was the fix (ballpark)?

Had the same problem, getting seat fixed by BMW
 

My wife drives an '06 3.0, and a couple of weeks ago I was driving with the driver side seat heater on high, and got burned right through the seat, with a cigarette sized hole in the leather. I almost crashed it was so hot, and not to mention I had my 3 month old daughter in the car with us. Well we called BMW North America and they are repairing the seat bottom with heating element for free, and I have no warranty coverage on the X5 anymore. So it may be worth it for some of you to call and make a stink, to see if you can get this covered as well.

Sorry, haven't had a chance to work on this - hopefully maybe this weekend. Will take pics and post price.

Does this problem occur at the level 3 setting only or is at any setting?

I always bump it up to level 2.

Mine was doing it on "1"