Look for red with yellow dots that's your can signal. I don't think that's your problem as both seats would not work . That's a very odd issue as usually it will adleast blink to indicate a fault of wire break. It's very poissible you have a bad switch bundle. Any drinks recently spilled in the area ?

Thanks for the super fast response! No idea, the car is new to me as of 48hours :)

I recall in my old E46 my drivers heat worked somewhat but the lights would come on & off momentarily and that was a grid issue.

This car the driver side simply doesnt come on at all.. I checked the fuses and interestingly enough the heated seats call for 12, 31,51,61 and I didn't have a fuse in 51.. so i figured well thats my issue. Put in a new fuse and same thing - no lights on that switch at all.

I can't swap the switches can I from pass to driver to test? I'm also guessing that probing for voltage down below the seat on wires green and brown I won't see anything if the switch isn't getting activated?

unfortunately the switch is all one unit. What you could do is "de pin" the connector on the back of the switch group and swap the connectors around . If you do a little poking around on the e46 forums there is some wiring info . When I did my heated set retro in my X3 I had a hell of a time finding any info . Let me see if I can find the info I used

Here's some information I posted a while ago

http://www.xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-foru...-possible.html

Hope this helps =]

Thats a good idea actually I can certainly do that. Now my question goes; since this car is so new to me - how does one remove that centre console? I'm having a hard time finding much info on the E83. I'm assuming the centre switch module just pops out.

Gonna look into this link now.

1- center vents pry out
2- philips screws top of radio x2
3- whole plastic bezel that has hvac prys off (pry bottom corner)
4- put hand in shifter boot and pull the whole shifter (black part)
5- the wood center con trim that has the switches in it make sure you look at the bottom part of the wood trim "toward cup holder" you will see a metal C clip at each corner. Carefully pry out as they can fall and get lost
6- two more Phillips hold the wood in and it should come out

Wow!! That's certainly a lot more work then the old E46.. lol. Thanks for your help thus far! Does step 3 matter if I don't have auto/climate control? Mine is the standard dial style..

I think my next step and probably most logical will be to see if the interchanging the connections between the two switches would get it working. If so that would indicate switch problem.

Don't there is much probing for me to do under the seat as its currently?

Pulled the seats out etc to clean the carpet and the wiring loom appeared to be fine. Going to check the seat & wiring. If that checks out then my next step is the centre switch console I guess.

This might not be that useful to you but this happened to my friends BMW (not a x5) where he bought it used, thought it had heated seats and in fact it was just the buttons as the previous owner had bought a different button panel (With heated seats option) with the boot release and installed that. No heating element was actually in the seats annoyingly.

Thanks for the tip but yah that's deff not the case with me. The passenger side works and has the heat.