Hi, the heated front leather seats on my wife’s Superb have all of a sudden stopped working. Car is 9 years old/117000 miles. Is this likely to be a fuse or do heated seats eventually burn out? Thanks.

Hi, if both have stopped working most likely the fuse in the dash fusebox.

If the back rest or seat base on one seat has failed then the mat or wiring has failed.

The heating control unit could also have failed too, someone on here had a problem with the heater control unit where the seat switch or circuit had failed. 

The legend (shown on the right) for the fuses is for LHD cars,

The RHD fuse box is shown on the left I have marked the positions at the bottom for the seat fuse positions, disregard the top markings as they were for something else.

Blown fuse would indicate a shorted mat or wire, VW passats had an issue where the mat shorted on the metal seat frame and were subject to a campaign, that was a few years back though.

 

 

Thanks, 3T51704x4, that is a great answer, really informative and helpful and I appreciate the images. I’ll check it out as soon as I get the chance. Thanks for taking the time, I’ll post an update when I’ve now done a bit more on the investigative front!

Hah, this is great - no blown fuse (unfortunately), although the 20A next to it was blown, so I swopped them over. All of a sudden I have functional headlamp washers that I never knew I had!! (had car for three years...., doh). A ‘win’ on that front, but no further forward with the seats. Is the heater control unit you mention, accessible, and/or is there anything else I can check? Thanks again, Andrew.

Hi, as a simple fuse fix has been ruled out, you are now getting into current flow diagrams and ecu pin out testing. I haven't looked for the thread,  but someone on here  recently had a similar problem with their series 2 seat heaters which turned out to be the air con/heater control unit (with seat heat select switches in the centre console).

J774 seat heater control unit which powers the heating mats when the switches are pressed shows as being under the driver seat in ELSA for my car;  but I haven't looked for it myself to confirm. (control units for RHD are not always fitted in the same place the workshop manual says, like the gateway ECU which is accessed by removing the wiper motor and a plastic panel).