As a added benefit, if you order two or more sets, you get a freebie.... Not much of an item, but I received the circuit tester and extra fuses.
Also, what was really nice is the set they sent fit the seats perfectly, no trimming needed on my part. The only holes I cut into the heater was for the seat back hog rings in the middle. Autowarm has a fairly good tech line, so they can clear things up if you need additional support.

 

Cracker, were you able to reuse the old hog rings or did you have to buy new ones?
If so, where did you find them (link if possible)?

 

I also used the same kits as Cracker. Can't really re-use the hog rings, as they get pretty fubared getting them off. I tried to use hog rings to put it all back, but go tired of it and ended up using 100 little zip ties.. was much easier.

 

nakman, can I assume you've been very happy with your kit too?

Anyone have any trouble with these kits burning out or malfunctioning?

 

The hog rings are not re-usable. You should be able to find them at your local hardware store. If you can't find any, let me know, as my local hardware store carries them. They were around $6 I think for a box of them.

 

Very cool thanks!
Too bad the seat heater kits don't come with them because almost every seat uses them

 

They should offer an install kit, w/ the hog ring pliers and hog rings included. They are not that difficult to use, especially when you are re-using the seat cover. When you redo a seat and use a new cover, then it is a bit of a pain to install. I don't like the idea of using zip ties, as they tend to get brittle over the years, especially do to temp. extremes.

 

I agree.....with our weather up here, zip ties would be toast.
I will definately use the hog rings if I do it.

 

No problems so far with the heaters, they're working great. I find it hard to believe that the zip ties could get brittle because of temperature changes but guess it could happen. If it does I'll go back in and replace them, but I'm not worried about it. Hog rings are better, but I've only got pliers from Home Depot and they're for fence and generally too big for this application. When I ditched them and used some angled needle nose with zip ties the job got a lot easier.

 

We can hit temps here of -40 C/F so even good quality ties can snap like glass.
In your area they may be perfectly fine.

 

Ok, so I've had the heaters installed in the Runner for a week now, and they're working great. But I am thinking that the "green" setting on the switches is actually hotter than the "red" setting. I'm tempted to grab the oven probe and record a little data... but man I had it on green last Saturday for about 30 minutes and it was about all I could take.. very hot!!!

Any of you other guys notice a difference between "green" and "red?"

 

So I finally installed the heating elements when I reupholstered the passanger seat yesterday. Maybe not the season for this but since I had the seat apart I figured I might as well add it. My wife suffers from lower back pain and better lumbar and heat helps it on long drives (going on a two week trip this leavin this friday).

I hooked up the wires to the back of one of the 12V outlets. This should keep it controlled by the ignition. But it was a bit of a hack job (I slippe the wired into the the contacts conneting to the 12V outlet) as I wanted to keep the 12v outlet functioning too. Does anyone have a better idea and perhaps pictures of how to hook this up?
Thanks