Heated and cooled seats

[meing3]

Im having trouble with my heated and cooled seats in my 2011 SHO. The seats used to work incredibly well and now in both modes they barely work. It feels like just normal air is blowing and you can hardly feel anything coming out of both seats.

I have 67K on the car and have little faith in my home dealership here in town (bumper to bumper out until 90K). I had the dreaded wearing of the knock sensor on the wiring harness and the dealership couldn't diagnose it (this forum solved that one :thank you. The car was in on friday and they took everything apart and phoned in to a ford engineer to see what they thought. At this point the fans are still blowing and the dealership doesn't know what else to do.

So far i have replaced cabin air filter and ran the seats in both modes without the seat filers in place. Anyone experienced a problem similar to this?

 

[SHOrod]

I see you are also in Iowa, and considering how hot and humid it's been here recently, I wonder if you're just expecting too much from the seats. The heating and cooling feature uses a Peltier device which is only able to achieve a temperature differential from ambient, not an absolute temperature. If my recall is correct, the differential is something like 20 degrees, so if it's 120 degrees in your car after sitting in the sun, the seats will only be able to achieve 100 degrees until the inside of the car cools down. While you'll still notice this difference, it could be perceived as "barely working".

If your dealership has not already done so, you or they might want to make some measurements with (ideally) a thermal imaging camera or IR thermometer to determine what differential your seats are providing to help determine if they are working properly or not.

-Rod

 

[esfoad]

Might be a silly question but have you replaced the filter for the seats? Yes these seats have an air filter. It's often overlooked and might be your problem.

 

[Calgary]

mine seem to feel more effective sometimes than others. i left it on full for a long car ride and my seat was piping hot when on full cold by the end of it. my friends dodge ram has really good cooled seats you can feel cold air going threw the hole seat right away. mine fail to fully circulate i think. the backs of the seat are both supppose to go cool right?

 

[meing3]

I ran both modes today without the seat filters in with the same result. Almost zero air flow and the air is not changing temperature at all. I have a feeling one of the modules is bad. You can hear and see the fans working under the seats so I know thats not the issue. At this point I'm going to keep pushing back at my home dealership to get it fixed. May have to get a regional manager involved and find the right dealership to service it. These cars are a real pain when it comes to servicing.