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Diagnosing heated seats

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diagnosing heated seats
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20K views 15 replies 9 participants last post by  JayTheSnork  
R
#1 · (Edited)
Diagnosing heated seats -- Now with pics of switch removal

I've been trying to determine where the fault is and why the passengers side seat no longer heats. Usingnthe wiring diagram here I grounded my voltmeter to pin 2 and then tried 1 & 3, then grounded to 4 and tried 1 & 3 again. I never saw any current on the display but there was tone indicating a circuit.

Now I'm not totally sure that I checked the correct leads but i think I did, if any one has a better diagram for an '03 passat please let me know.

I also checked the fuses, fuse 5 is a 10amp instead of a 7.5 and 44 is a 30amp instead of a 15. Now the drivers side seat works fine, gets quite hot actually, so I would assume that even though the fuses are the wrong rating that isn't the problem or the drivers side wouldn't work either?

So assuming that i correctly check the leads going to the seat then the next thing to check in the switch in the dash correct? To check the switch how much dash will I need to remove?
 
#4 ·
With your multimeter set to Ohms, connect the black meter lead to a good ground and use the red lead to probe contacts 1 and 3 on the seat harness. The meter should indicate continuity (almost no resistance) on both contacts. This verifies the two ground circuits.

For the next test connect the seat harness to the seat, set the ignition switched to the ON position and the passenger side heat control turned all the way to high. Set the meter to DC Volts, connect the black meter lead to a good ground and use the red lead to back-probe contact 4 on the harness. You should see something close to battery voltage. This test tells you if the control is sending power to the heating elements in the seat or not.

If no voltage is present, the cause could be...
Control is bad.
Temp sensor in the seat is bad.
No voltage getting to pin 4 of the control switch.

There are two circuits involved in the seat heating. One senses temperature of the seat and the other is power to the heating elements.
 
R
#8 ·
***An Update With Pics**

I swapped the passengers for drivers switch, I now have a heated passengers seat!

I searched for pics of the switch removal but couldn't find any so I took some my self in the hope that it helps someone else.

1. Use a small screwdriver to remove the faceplate of the switch:
Image


2. The switch still installed:
Image


3. Remove the switch with some small pliers, grab onto the side and pull:
Image


4. Switch is loose, you can now pull it out by hand:
Image


5. Grab hold of the green part and pull the black part away. The black part is the actual switch:
Image


So that's it, pull both sides swap the switches and see what happens.

Bigger pics here.

Now I need to find another switch, off to the the sales forums.


ps. If anyone is wondering my head unit, an Alpine CDE-103BT is off in California getting a 'supar-sekret' firmware upgrade to fix the iPod and USB memory issues I was having.
 
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