2005 Seat Heater Replacement Options?

[swalt]

Hey guys, the driver's seat heater on my wife's 2005 Sport Trac has gone on the fritz. The passenger side works fine. The light on the driver's seat illuminates. I knew it was on its way out as it sometimes would not work, but if you shifted your butt a certain way it would come back to life, telling me the element has a break.

Problem is, the elements for the 2005 cannot be bought anymore as Ford has told me they are obsolete. I have searched parts forums, dealers, ebay, US and Canada and nothing is available. I know I can hit a wrecker to take a chance on finding a good used one, but it is a crap shoot. I thought it would be as simple as taking a generic heater and splicing it in, but my local Ford dealer said the stock seat element has a thermoresister built into it and without the system seeing the appropriate resistance, it will not work.

I would like to hear from anyone that has done a repair. I really don't want to go to an aftermarket solution unless I absolutely have to. I would like to continue using the Ford switch. Is there any other pad out there that I can splice my connector on to or other options? If anyone has a line on driver's side seat pads, would love to know a source.

 

[jon99explorer]

Mine has exactly the same problem, except no butt shifting will make mine work.
I'm waiting till warmer weather (this winter has been our 4th coldest on record) to work on it.
I also would like to find something that would work with the factory switch.

 

[Galactica]

We had an aftermarket one installed in ours when we bought our Sport Trac last year as the driver's side one already did not work. The factory switch is still there, but now there is a new, smaller 2-position switch farther back that Ford installed and we couldn't be happier. The new heating element was about 300 bucks and gets Very toasty on its high setting. Believe me, it looks just fine having an extra switch there near the other ones and the aftermarket element will work better than the original. It was a bad design to begin with as your weight ends up bending and ultimately breaking the seat base element and since they are wired in series, it automatically kills the seat back element...