The dealer here in lower dutchess county, NY wants $495 to install one heated seat. Does anyone have suggestions for less expensive alternative? I'd love a butt warmer, but $500 seems over much to me.
Get something that plugs into the cigarette lighter. $18 per seat at Sears automotive. Also includes vibration!
Try a sheepskin seat cover, 2 piece from a local auto parts store. If you don't like it, you can return it. Maybe you'll only use the seat bottom portion, I do. I don't think you will find a more comfortable material to sit on than a genuine sheepskin pelt. Well, heated leather is really good. Mine was $79 from auto store. And you may not need a seat heater at all. Try it. Nothing to lose. If it works, later on step up to a custom fit Prius cover with Merino sheepskin and all.
I just had seat (and back) heaters installed in BOTH my front seats for $500 at a local "after market" shop here in Kentucky. They have a high/low setting (small round switch mounted on side of seat skirt). This is a very common retrofit - call your local Toyota dealer and ask them where to go. The units seem to be good quality and warm-up just as fast as my wife's Mercedes.
Does anyone know if heated seats will put additional strain on the battery? What I mean is will this cause overheating or possibly a short (maybe a fire)? Why isn't this offered as an option, are the engineers who designed the electrical part of this car aware of something we may not be? Just trying to determine if there is any risk...
I doubt if there is any risk causing an excessive battery drain seeing as how they only operate when the car is turned on (in which case the battery is being replenished continuously). As to the chance of a fire - I seriously doubt it. One explanation of the Gen II not having heated seats offered as an option is that they needed to hold-back some of the bells & whistles for Gen III (otherwise, why would anyone trade up?).
Wow. I didn't know that you could get heated seats in the new Prius - I assume you mean the 2010 that was released at the end of last year? or is this something not released yet....
The 2010. It's is only available with leather seats, however. I still don't understand why a good chunk of manufacturers don't offer heated seats with cloth. Yes, cloth is warmer than leather but for those that live at higher latitudes (martime climate notwithstanding) know that heated seats are a blessing in the middle of winter.
How about the kind that you just plug into a cigarette lighter.Would that pull too much power? My Optima has leather heated seaats,and I really miss them on a long trip.
I got a quote of $80 labor per seat from a place in Brewster. Amazon has a high quality aftermarket kit for $66. I also got a quote for $295 per seat including parts from a place in Westchester. I was told the same thing by the dealer in dutchess $495 each
I installed a heated seat kit in my own 05 prius. $45.00 from ebay. They work great. SAMSUNG-SM-T817A ? Tapatalk Cloud - Downlaoad File 20160109_200342.jpg
How hard was the install and did you use any special tools? Where did you located the switch(es) or tap into 12v at?
I have just ordered a heated seat kit from Amazon for under $50. It has two pads of carbon heaters for each seat, a round switch and relay. The kit is for two seats. There was also one that was almost double the price and I could not figure out the difference. So I ordered the cheaper one and will see what shows up in a few days. Really looking forward to presenting this to my lovely wife on our 22nd anniversary this Saturday. We've had Volvos for a while and the heated seats really became one of the favorite features for her. She really loves the Prius, but the seats not heating up is an issue. Hence my interest in this. I can take heated seats or leave them, but nothing says "I love you" like a butt warmer.
I'll try, but not making any promises. I am really bad about that kind of thing. There is a lot of stuff online I have already found. Also, it is really getting cold here in New England and I am hoping to do the job as quickly as possible so as not to aggravate my arthritic joints.
Just received the heaters. They look good. Wire harness for each seat, two pads and some zip ties. There is a relay on each harness and an inline fuse. I am still at a loss as to what the difference is between this kit and the more expensive one on Amazon. So what is the best circuit to tap into for this appliance? I am thinking the power plug in the center console, but maybe there are better ideas out there? Please share. I will be installing pretty soon given the weather.
I wonder if the Gen 2 was offered with seat heaters in any of the world markets? Sometimes if you look through the wiring diagram, you find existing fuse positions (and even, sometimes, relays) already intended for the feature you are adding. I don't know if that holds for this case, but it might be worth checking. -Chap
Here all the Priuses came (and still come) with front seat heaters. I posted the picture of switch location to the other thread about seat heaters Add heated seats | PriusChat But I don’t know where the power is taken from as I don’t have the electric diagram for the model that has heated seats.
I have read somewhere (probably on PC) that in Finland there was a heated seat option for Gen 2. I am not 100% certain it was Toyota factory or dealer installed, though. I'll be looking at this later today. My thought was to piggy back on headlights circuit, but I will have to reevaluate. The pads I got are about 5 ohm (+/- 5%) each (two of them per seat). They are wired to run in parallel for high setting and in series for low setting. So just under 6A each seat on high setting. I am now leaning towards running power directly from the battery terminals (in the fuse box, not the actual battery) and activating the power circuit with a relay powered from say a power outlet in the center console. The relay draws negligible current and will not overload the power outlet and the wire harness for the heaters has a 10A inline fuse, so that may be the way to go.
