Jack, What year is your TCH? I also have the 2007 and as I said in my post, my seat heaters work great. Is it possible the 2007 models are different? As I said before, I think the dealer should at least be questioned. By the way....my passenger and drivers seat both work the same. Now this may be silly, and I have not tried it, but do you have the "economy" switch on? Is it possible this could cut down power to the seat heaters? LOL...

 

I have an 07 with factory installed heated seats. I too think they are usually only "warm" and not "hot." It appears to fluctuate with the ICE. When the ICE is on, they seem warmer than if the ICE is off.
While the button is only an on/off, the temperature definitely varies on it's own.

Maybe you're on to something with the ECO button, I'll have to give that a try. I usually have ECO on.

 

Ditto for me.

Tomorrow morning we're supposed to have freezing conditions here in Houston.

I will report for ECO on and off in my (early production) 2009 TCH.

 

The factory installed seat heaters in my 2007 TCH are very quick to warm up and are between low/high in comparison to my wife's 2001 Chrysler PT Cruiser..

When I leave home and it's -15F outside the seats are warming up within 2 blocks from my house. BTW - My TCH has never spent a night in the garage, it's outside all the time.

 

Randy,

Do you have an opinion on the ECO on vs. off effect ?

Are you warmed up on a block heater on those -15F mornings?

Are you using any radiator blockage?

 

My 09 TCH has factory leather seats. There is only an on/off button for each seat. From my experience in central texas on days near 32F, and in Iowa in sub zero weather, the seat heaters work extremely well. From my experience I find they come up to full temp in less then 2 min and in my opinion become uncomfortably HOT after about 10 minutes of use.

 

The plot thickens:

This morning in Houston the forecast cold weather had not yet arrived, but I made some observations at approximately 45 F outside temperature.

(early production 2009 Camry Hybrid with single-stage factory seat heaters)

I set out from home, block heater warmed with SOC = 3 bars, ECO = off, Auto = off, A/C = off, Thermostat = HI, fan speed = 1 bar and the seat heater on. While driving stop and go for 2 miles in approx. 10 minutes the seat heater did warm up some, but it never got very warm and seemed cycle on and off some. I would characterize the heat as ranging between little and disappointing, certainly not enough to cause me to want to turn it off even though the car interior temperature had warmed up to a higher temperature than I needed.

On the return trip I had SOC = 7 bars and I set ECO = on, Auto = on, A/C = off, Thermostat = 72, and the seat heater still on. This produced even less heat. If the heater came on at all it did not seem to stay on as long. I would characterize the heat as ranging from little to none.

 

I looked at the Toyota wiring diagrams and it does not appear that the seat heaters are in any way connected to any other systems in the vehicle, only to the main power bus.
I can not confirm this, but I would guess that there is some sort of thermostat or sensor in the seat ( i ma not referring to the climat controls here) to prevent the seat from catching fire, possibly this temp sensor is bad in some vehicles, or possibly something is causing it to trip off early such as something stuffed under the seat.

 

Thanks, Biggie, for going to the trouble to check and report this:

and I'm assuming that this would be the 12-Volt bus. Right ?

This is the best explanation I've heard so far.

It would be consistent with my experience.

And it would explain why the factory units seem to work satisfactorily for some and not for others.

not in my case.

 

Hey Guys,

I'm from Ontario, Canada and have dealt with winter weather all my life. From someone who hasn't ever used seat heaters before, my 2007 TCH's factory installed leather seat heaters are just right. Although they don't have a high/low setting, I have found the just right in cold weather. I'm used to weather under minus zero degrees fahrenheit and even on days below 20 I'm loving the factory seat heaters.