I installed seat heaters this past weekend - following roughly the same procedure as I did in my Toyota Tacoma a few years back and thought I'd share a few pics of the tear-down and install.
The patient prepped for surgery - battery charger installed so I could leave the doors open.
On the bench and ready for disassembly
Most manufacturers follow similar techniques - hog rings, hog rings, and more hog rings
Take your time. The seat actuators look complicated, but everything has a place.
Passenger seat (the black felt is the airbag sensor) test-fitted with the heating pad. "X" section will be cut and removed.
Hog ring pliers are mandatory. This is the 8th seat for this trusty pair of pliers.
These are the old rings from just one seat!
I've always thought the seat bolster felt a little flimsy compared to the other side. This is why. The seat foam was deformed from the factory and very thin.
I built it up using some scrap foam and poly quilting material - better than new. I also used a similar process in other areas in order to restore most of the effects of natural leather stretching - these seats have 54k miles on them.
Mounting the switches - I like a factory look and I'm cheap. The shifter surround is easily replaceable if I make a mistake. The cables in the photo look like they're part of the shifter - they're actually part of the welder in the background.
All done and buttoned up. All wires are hidden in the console - 12v is direct from the battery and grounded via a self-tapping screw under the shifter surround. These heaters seem to heat faster than those I've used previously - hot in under 4 or 5 minutes and so hot you have to switch to low after 10 minutes or so.
