1991 Saab 900 heated seat

That depends on your intelligence. If you're not, it will be an expensive deal

Matt, Your reply didn't help this old lady who does not work on her own car. I thought I was intelligent enough to expect a comprehensive reply from this group - maybe you're correct after all! Best wishes Greta

I don't think a single rude response is indicative of the group as a whole. As to your answer, as with so many other things, it depends. Could be as simple as the pressure switch which tells the system there's someone in the seat (if your car has one), or the thermostat, or could be that the elements are just shot. What details can you give us? Stop working all at once I assume? Any other strangeness in your seat? (sitting lower than normal for instance, like the suspension of the seat has dropped out?) Does the other front seat's heat work if equipped? Checked fuses yet?

Lots of questions, which bring us back to "it depends" so far.

Dave Hinz

Greta ("Greta" ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Well, I didn't reply at the time, thinking somebody with more experience may do so - but in the absence of that, here we go...

There's two types, AFAIK. One with an external thumbwheel to regulate the heat, one without. That latter has a thermostatic switch in the seat.

First off, out with the multimeter and check you're getting a live feed to the connector under the seat. If you've got the thumbwheel, check that the voltage varies according to the setting of that. If you've got the auto 'static seat, you should have +12v all the time the ignition is on. Make sure the earth is good.

If you've got the thermostat, check that's playing. Ice and a hairdryer should be helpful to "persuade" it on and off.

If you've got power and earth, check for continuity (bear in mind it should be a fairly high resistance) across the two pins on the seat connector - no continuity means the heating grid is broken, and it's time to strip the seat cover off.

You are quite correct - I should not have judged the group on the basis of one response. Actually the group has helped me before and I was just taken aback this time. Only the drivers seat is equipped and a switch has to be used - no sensor. Everything else with the seat is fine. It happened suddenly. If the elements are shot, given the age of the car, would you guess that it would be a high labor cost for a garage to repair? Greta

Greta ("Greta" ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Probably an hour or two at the least.

Seriously - get a multimeter (not exactly expensive) and get stuck in there. Just think of the sense of satisfaction as you settle back into the toasty warm seat and think "I fixed it myself!"

You're an old lady (this time) because you have no clue how to ask for help other than disguising yourself as a woman. Old ladies don't work on their cars let alone participate in these news groups.

Look, Matt, life is too short to be as angry as you are. I am 77 years old and definitely a woman and a widow at that. I have always loved cars even though I do not have mechanical abilities and above all I love my Saab. Best wishes. Greta

And yet, between her and you, one is not worth reading, and the other isn't. Guess which is which.

Hint:

Well spoken. So any thoughts about the multimeter? Pretty sure parts for that new of a car will still be available. Are you comfortable around upholstery tools? For this, pretty basic stuff, you could even just snip the hog rings & replace 'em with zip ties, far as that goes. Off with the fabric, out with the damaged electric blanket, in with a new one, back with the fabric, done. That's most likely. You might want to consider a suspension kit for the seat while you've got the skin off the thing.

Dave

Do you really need them to work? Guess it depends where in the world you're located.

Regards,

Craig.

Sheesh. She's asking how big a deal it is, and gets two people being astonishingly unhelpful. Why not just, you know, not answer?

I'm remembering now why I took a break from the group.

Steady. Isn't this what usenet is always like? There's nearly always more noise than signal, but does it really matter? The good answers are easy to spot and I doubt the posters of irrelevant ones are holding back nuggets of information that might actually have helped. Take this post for instance. Sure it's irrelevant to the OP, but then, since I don't know the answer to her question, my alternative was not to post at-all.

Whatever problems this group has, you certainly can't count too much traffic as one of them.

Cheers,

Colin.

I guess it depends on if the people making asses of themselves are just talking to hear themselves talk, or are trying to discourage newbies from sticking around. You and I know how Usenet works, but if someone new or new-ish shows up, we don't know their background or history, or if this will be their first experience with this, or what. Chasing them away by being rude is hardly a way to build activity and is hard to see as anything but negative.

Rude responses to people with legitimate questions certainly aren't going to help _that_.

Indeed. But I don't see how Craig's response could be seen as particularly rude or hostile. It was certainly irrelevant and unhelpful to the OP, but there's nothing wrong with that in itself. Loads of entertaining debates have been started that way.

Cheers,

Colin.

Whoa there Dave! I'm in Australia remember and seat heaters here tend to be gross overkill, hence my question of whether the original poster really needs them to work, since if not, disabling them rather than fixing them can be a more sensible approach.

If you think that my advice to the original poster is 'unhelpful', care to define how? If I lived in Northern Europe or somewhere in the USA or Canada that gets blizzard conditions in winter, perhaps I might not be asking whether the original poster needs to have them working. But I'm not, so I ask based on my own perspective and go forward from there.

Lets not start taking backward steps by criticising other people's honest advice and questions... That's what Mr S. Patterson of TSN.con does. 8-)

Regards,

Craig.

And yet, if she's asking the question, why would you presume to second-guess her reasons for doing so?

Useless at best, I think, is a good way to categorize it. It seemed to me that you were saying to her, "Oh well,it's broken, why would you want to fix it?" She asked how involved fixing it is, not if some person living in a different part of the world thought it was important enough to deal with.

And yet, she did ask how involved it was, and you injected your regional judgement into it when that wasn't asked for. See previous re: "useless at best".

Save your preaching. Your response was not useful or a positive way to respond to someone asking the group for help. Pretending that the TSN guy has anything to do with it smacks of "he started it!".

Dunno what I've done to upset you Dave. You've flown off the handle over something which is a minor issue.

I've dealt with seat heaters in my classic 900 which were a lot earlier than the 1991 build year car owned by the original poster.

Don't expect everyone reading/posting in this newsgroup on Saab-related topics to know precisely what part of the world each post's author is located (which more or less indicates whether a particular feature is likely to be beneficial or not based on climate, etc.).

Craig.

This isn't "flying off the handle", it's telling you, that your answer was useless at best and would have been more positive to have not sent anything.

Not relevant. She was asking if it was a big deal, not if some guy in a different climate thought she should bother with it.

Just a thought, but if someone is asking how to do (thing),

nevermind. Enjoy your group.