2016 Denali Heated Seat - Heating Element Replacement

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16yukondenali

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As we are getting into fall and colder temperatures I turned on my driver seat warmer for the first time since owning this vehicle and the lights came on but no heat! I was scheduled for a service and asked the dealer to take a look at it. They told me there was a short in the bottom and back heating elements and they would need to be replaced. OK... how much? $750...because we need to take the seat out.

I feel confident I can do this myself, but have not found any DIY for the 2015-2020 model years. Has anyone done this and can share their tips? Which heating element do I need to get (with cooled seats)?

Lastly- the cooling function seems to work but I think it should be working better. Passenger side seems to have more "cooling factor". Is this related to the heating element issue? Are the cooling vents clogged? Thoughts?
 
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16yukondenali

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Crickets....

I ended up finding a video of someone taking apart a silverado seat with heated and cooled seats and now I know the process. I ordered seat bottom and back heating elements with cool air feature and a new foam seat cushion as well. Might as well replace that while I have it apart. I suspect now that the cooling feature has to do with the small blower and am going to test it when I have the seat out of the car. Hopefully I will be able to swap the heating elements one night this week and let everyone know how it went.
 
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16yukondenali

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I was able to swap the bottom seat cushion and the bottom and back heating/cooling elements last week. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures as I was working alone. Everything is working again and the new bottom cushion is a big improvement over the original with close to 90k miles on it. In total it took about 2.5 hours, the biggest pain was getting the blue piping on the seat cushions back into the clasps. I used videos I found on youtube from TheSeatShop. If anyone has any questions I would be happy to help.
 

layz

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So where did you get the heating/cooling elements? I've kicked the idea around that i may want to "add" heating and cooling to my seats without actually having the option. My guess is that the hookups may be there just not used since it's a assembly line just trim levels that tell people, ok this truck gets these options. For me the cooling is the better option, i can live without the heat. I'll check out the youtube vids too.
 

Tahoe14

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It will probably be very expensive if even possible since yours did not come from the factory, you will need perforated seats and vents in the back of the seats, controls mounted in the lower dash area and wired if there is no connector, dealer may have to turn them on using their computer.
 
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16yukondenali

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So where did you get the heating/cooling elements? I've kicked the idea around that i may want to "add" heating and cooling to my seats without actually having the option. My guess is that the hookups may be there just not used since it's a assembly line just trim levels that tell people, ok this truck gets these options. For me the cooling is the better option, i can live without the heat. I'll check out the youtube vids too.
I bought the heating/cooling elements and seat foam from OEM parts direct. It would be easier to just add heated seats and there are plenty of kits to do this for about $400. 10 years ago I added a heated seat to my work F150, cost was about $250 and I googled around for installation (non dealer) and if I remember it was around $150 for install. They put the supplied toggle switch into the side of the plastic seat panel for me too. To my knowledge they do not make just a cooled version.

The cooled/heated seats require separate blowers for the seat cushion and seat back, where if you just add warmers you would not need the blowers. Adding both would also "require" the foam cushions that have cutouts for the blower connection, but you can make the necessary modification to the OEM foam in about 10 min. Depending on the mileage of your vehicle I would recommend getting new seat foam. (I recently helped my fire captain change his seat cushion and bottom seat cover in his F150 King Ranch in about an hour, after I told him that I did mine successfully. Hardest part about his install is they used hog-nose clips to attach the cover to the foam and base and luckily I had hog-nose pliers otherwise it would have taken forever)

My guess is that to add factory heated cooled seat would be about $1,000 - $1,200 if you already have perforated seats. Likely double that price if you need to get new seat covers.
 
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