2009 Tahoe LTZ - Front Heated & Cooled Seats Don't Work (Relay clicks on and off again after 5 sec)

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slowride77

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Hello all. I know there have been other posts similar to this, but I am wondering if someone can possibly help me diagnose my exact problem.

I have a 2009 Tahoe LTZ with roughly 112,000 miles on it. Just recently the heated and cooled seats (on both front driver and passenger seats) stopped working. The 2nd row heated seats work just fine.

When I turn on any of the heating or cooling functions (for either the driver or passenger seat) the associated panel light turns on and I hear the relay click. After roughly 5 seconds I hear the relay click again. The lights on the panel stay illuminated. At this point, no matter what button I push on either seat heat / cooling controls, I do not hear the relay click again. In order to get it to click, I need to shut off the vehicle and restart it. After doing so, the same thing will take place. After I push a heating / cooling controls button (no matter which button I push on the controls for either seat), the relay will click and then click off again after roughly 5 seconds.

I know I have read that the seat heating elements are usually the most common suspect related to heated seat issues, but since I am experiencing the exact same situation with all buttons on both seat controls, I am wondering if this might be related to a common control module of some kind.

Any input you could provide related to this, would be greatly appreciated. If I can help it, I would really like to be able to self diagnose this and make the repair myself.

Thank you in advance for your help!
This is my exact issue. Same year and everything. Did anyone ever figure the solution out?!? My fuses are good and harnessing looked good. I would love to know if OP figured out this issue with his ‘09?


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petethepug

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This is a good place to start...

https://www.chevyavalanchefanclub.com/cafcna/index.php?threads/drivers-heated-seat.154310/

The Achilles heal of the cooled seats is the bellows or duct work from the fan that supplies air flow through the seat covers. They break down and leak air so it never makes it to the seat back/bottom. They can be inspected and patched but be aware that this is new ground that GM is not acknowledging.

Once they are repaired, find bliss that you’ve got cooled seats in your early truck vs ventilated seats that suck the cool ambient air of the cabin at your arse (once it’s cool in the truck [emoji3]).


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swathdiver

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Has anyone figured out this issue?

This is my exact issue. Same year and everything. Did anyone ever figure the solution out?!?

You fellas got to put a Tech-2 on it to pull the BCM codes as to exactly why it's not working. The codes will be in there, you just need the right tool to extract them.
 

slowride77

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This is my exact issue. Same year and everything. Did anyone ever figure the solution out?!? My fuses are good and harnessing looked good. I would love to know if OP figured out this issue with his ‘09?


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I know this has been a year, but I resolved my issue with my seats and thought i would share. My heated and cooled seats for both passenger and drivers side work great now and have been for the past 8 months or so.

Buy watching this guy's YouTube video, i was able to fix my plug. You can do it without removing the seat in the SUV. He is working on a DTS Cadillac (same underdseat heating module though).

And using this guy's YouTube video, i was able to see the empty pin's ground plane on the circuit board and use that empty pin to double up the ground on the wiring on the plug side. See, the issue with this underseat module is all the power has to return through a single ground pin in the plug. The wire gauge can handle it, but the female pin side doesnt have enough surface area contact to return all the power through to the ground, so it overheat and melts the plug. There is a unused pin on the circuit board of the module. You can add a jumper to the big guage ground wire (Tie and small extra wire to the ground wire) and run it to the empty spot in the plug (you will need new female AMP connectors for this, the guy tells you the part numbers. I ordered mine on Mouser.com). This will pin onto the additional ground plane pin on the circuit board, which is unused. This will spread the ground return over 2 pins in the plug and then feed back into the heavy guage ground wire after the plug. The pins are the issue. The single ground pin can't handle the power returned through it when all seat heaters are running. The heating elements and fans all running together overheats it. Like the guy shows in this video, if you have a burnt mark on your ground pin when you unlug it, this is your issue.

This will fix the problem. It did for me. Just sharing the solve. Thanks to great people out on YouTube!
 
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