Heated seats

[Frdbronco8]

My driver's side heated seat is not working. The light on the button on the dash does come on. I put a test light to the connection and it had power so I thought the heating element was bad. I bought a new one but it still doesn't work. I put a voltmeter on it and found that it only has about .3 volts. I found that the other side has about 10 volts with the car off. Any

 

[Explorer_PL]

Ground issue ? When cheking the voltage where did you ground the "-" ?
Can you trace the wire and check voltage at different points ?
Probably easier said than done. Those wires are bundled under the carpet most likely....

 

[Frdbronco8]

I checked on the two leads that the heating element plugs into. And the unfortunate thing is that the wires dissapear into an inch thick bundle.

 

[Explorer_PL]

Can you put the probe into the positive side and ground it using any exposed bolt nearby ?

 

[tripplec]

Test across the power connector to the seat and if not > 12VDC you have a bad connection or ground. In your case if you are testing from the +ve of the connector to chassis ground and its 12VDC but not across the connector. Then its a ground issue. You could ohm the -ve lead to chassis and see that you have a fairly high resistance as it should not be more than 1-3 ohms.

 

[Frdbronco8]

Thanks for the tips. Sounds like its going to be a hidden mystery. I night just buy a 20 dollar aftermarket kit and tap into the cig plug in yhe center console. Unless anyone knows of a common problem area to check for a bad ground.

 

[tripplec]

You need to electrically test with a multimeter. Replacing parts rarely fixes the problem when its not an outright failure and you get it right (the guess). Testing is cheap and easy if you can get at the connector and determine which side has the problem. The power (12V low) or the ground is poor. Then you can address it.

 

[Explorer_PL]

What we are saying is if you get 12v grounding it directly to the chassis, then I would just use a jumper wire to the ground wire and be done.
But IF it's a bad ground, that means the ground bolt somewhere on the car (there are multiple ground point) is corroded and may affect other circuits.

And I agree, electrical things like that are mysteries that I hate.

 

[Frdbronco8]

Ah that makes sense, ill check the ground next and hope that is it. The rest of the power seat works fine so it may not be.
Thanks

 

[07EddyB]

Another electrical problem.

When did Ford buy Lucas

 

[Frdbronco8]

Jumped to 12v when I grounded the voltmeter on the seatbase. When i jump the - side of the heating element to the frame it still doesnt seem to be working even with 12v running between it and the ground.

 

[Frdbronco8]

Disregard. I went ahead and hooked everything up with the ground wire jumped to the seat base and it's working now. It might not have been when I tested it because I didn't have everything tightened up very well. Thanks a ton for the help. It gets hot really fast