1998 Buick Riviera Drivers Seat Heater won't work.

Hi, Here's the situation.

The Drivers seat heater in my 98 Riv doesn't work. The light came on when you pressed the button "Hi" & "Lo" but there was no heat. I also noticed a clicking sound coming from under the seat that I didn't hear from the passenger seat when it is on. After looking and asking around it was generally concluded that there was a broken element in the seat somewhere which meant replacing the element(s).

So, rather than taking a small loan and taking it to the dealer I bought a replacement element from "Autowarm.com". I wanted to keep the original button on the arm rest and all else that is factory. The replacement plug from the new element's and the OEM plug's from the car didn't match up which meant I had to cut the new plug off and splice the OEM on the new element wires, so far so good. Put everything back together and still no heat, same as before. The light on the button comes on and the clicking from under the seat is still there. Could the seat heater controller be the problem? There is an option of hooking up a new button that came with the new element's and bypassing the old system alltogether, am I better off going that route?

Any info here would be a real help,

BG.

The clicking may be a relay. It could be bad, or an insufficient ground could be causing the clicking.

Dave

Furnace wrote: (98 Buick Riviera Seat Heater Problem)

The Drivers seat heater doesn't work. The light comes on when you press the "Hi" & "Lo" button but there is no heat, and a clicking sound comes from under the seat. I replaced the heater element with one from Autowarm.com. The connector plug didn't match and I had to splice it in.

Result: Still shows switch light, still clicks under seat, and still no heat.

There is an option of hooking up a new button that came with the new element's and bypassing the old system altogether, am I better am I better off going that route? _________________________________________________________________________

Check further before giving up and jury-rigging a button. An odd button is inconvenient, looks tacky, and might not solve the problem.

A bad connection in the heater switch or its supply line could starve an under-seat relay and cause it to click on and off (like a bad battery cable causes a starter to click). Try bypassing the switch and hooking up power directly. If the heater heats and the clicking stops, the problem is in the supply circuit somewhere.

Some public libraries have manuals with wiring diagrams for cars. Knowing what is in the heater circuit would make diagnosis easier.

Look as far under the seat as possible and re-post a with a description of the area or better yet, the device the clicking is coming from. Also describe the clicking; tinny or thumping, quiet or loud, and frequency

- one click per second, or faster, or very fast like buzzing?

Good luck.

Rodan.

Getting hold of a for real factory shop manual set is a good idea... It'll have all the poop on the seat heaters, along with everything else in the car.

They cost a few bucks, but can save many times their cost over the life of the car, and are good sellers on eBay when the car reaches it's end of life.

Here's one place you might look for a set:

There are many places as well as well. Sometimes when buying a new car you can negotiate a set into the deal.

Seat heater's and their control/power circuitry are simple, a few minutes with your test light and/or VOM should flush out the issue in no time. Troubleshoot and identify bad components before buying and replacing parts... often enough, there will be nothing to buy!

Erik

A friend bought a oyear old 99 Chrysler 300 in 2000 . A wire crack off the heating element on the driverseat. Chrysler wants $400 + to remove and replace the heating element. No one will soder the wire on.........so since 2003 Mikey has had a cold rearend while driving as he isn't going to spend $400 for a new part when all it needs is a wire repaired.

harryface

91 Bonneville 320,204 05 Park Avenue 92,153

$400 is cheap. The bastards at Buick wanted $672 to fix mine. Broke in two years, but over 36,000 miles so not covered.

Fits the algorithm very well, huh?

Well,

My friend (who is an electrician) and I ended up putting in a replacement seat heater and wired the new button down by the hood release down and out of the way. Had to do it this way since the new replacement system was not compatible with the old factory system, at least that's what we determined. Works great and now I know how to remove and install a seat in a Riviera since I did it about 5 times by the time we were done.

BG