I was an idiot when I bought my 2002 Cooper. I had no idea how nice heated seats could be, and didn't order them when I bought my car. I've been regretting that choice for the past 7 years. I finally decided to do something about it, and ordered a heated seat kit to be installed by a local auto interior shop, Covers and Interiors in Highland Park, Illinois. They did a fantastic job on the car. The switches are different than stock, but mounted in the stock location. The heat is wonderfull and I am very happy.
Way cool! FES has a customer that used an Auto Sportplus to control some aftermarket seat covers with heaters. The accessory control was used with a high current relay module in an R56. Anyway, cool install. Thanks for sharing. Matt
Yep, very cool. I like the clever Auto Sportplus idea as well. Are the heater themselves inserted into the seat or are they separate as part of a set of covers?
The heating elements for the seat and back go inside the seats, so they had to open the seats up and glue in the elements and also wire things up. My seats look exactly as they did before.
That's great. Did you just go to the shop and ask what they could do or did you find the kit yourself and then go talk to the shop about installation? Just wondering whether you can name the kit in case others are interested in doing the same.
I spoke with the shop, and they carry heaters from seatheater.com They measured and ordered what was appropriate for me (I got the middle level two heat level). This is a busy time of year for seat heaters for some strange reason so it took a couple weeks till it arrived. Once the appointment was scheduled it took 1 1/2 days for them to install the seats. Total cost was 325-395 per seat installed depending on which heater you want. Could someone do it themselves? Probably, but not me.. I've heard the MINI seat foam is glued in instead of loose as on some cars, and I know I could not have done as nice a job as this place did.
I had no idea they could do this. Now I can get some Sparco seats in the future and still have my beloved heated seats. Can in-seat airbags be transferred as well?
Don't know, but then again I didn't realize you could get heated seats done that easily either.. Doesn't hurt to check. The place I went to does work for local auto dealers as well as custom stuff for hot-rods, older cars, boats and more. One time I was there they had an old hot-rod pickup truck that they installed rear facing seats in the pickup bed.. One time there was an Aston Martin lined up outside. When I picked up my car they had a Datsun 240z sitting in the back.
Couple of items... there are lots of seat heaters that can be installed under existing upholstery. I almost did that in my Mustang. The guy who did it with the stealth mode acc. control got seat covers that had integrated heaters. Looks like there is more than one way to skin the cat! Matt
I installed those same heaters in the Spitfire seats... don't work worth crap... spent hours trying to figure out what went wrong... have voltage everywhere and the switches all work... finally plugged in elements from a second kit I have and put my hand on them... barely warm at all... WTF? I was hoping to eventually find somebody who had these as well, but had done a DIY install... (in case you're wondering, I re-wired the entire car with an aftermarket harness with a 60A GM alternator... so the car has been de-Lucased)
Wet Oakly made the seat covers with integrated heaters. IT's a ~$80 add on. so any seat they can cover can get heaters added to them. Matt
Sure! Thanks for the correction... I've asked the customer if he wanted to do a write up.. We'll see. I think it's a pretty good application of the stealth mode acc. control. Matt
I really want to do this... maybe someday ill have the extra cash for it lol.. i could go a little faster for 800 bucks
Sorry to revive an old thread, but I'm just about to put a set of aftermarket elements on my wife's '06 Cooper and was wondering if you have side impact airbags? The only concern I've had or have heard of is the heat being able to set off the airbags, which are located in the seat-backs. I'll snap some pictures of the install when I do it, just not sure how to handle the airbag stuff and would love to hear any experience. Erik
Any heated seat will not set off the airbags in your seats because they are controlled by other impact sensors not in the seats that send signals to the Airbag ECU when they need to be fired in the event of a side impact.