'03 explorer heated seat won't shut off; disable pretensioners to troubleshoot?

Driver side seat heater on all the time, momentary switch on seat just turns off the indicator as long as I hold it in. Supposed 10 minute timer doesn't shut it down. Passenger side is fine.

Before checking to see if the seat-mounted switch is really momentary or stuck on, I'm wondering if there's a common failure mechanism here. I suppose if the seat module's at fault I'm talking some bucks. In that case I might just unplug the seat heater in the spring.

There are also warnings in the service manual that advise disabling seat mounted side air bags and safety belt pretensioners before probing circuit connectors. It seems they could inflate in your face. So I also have to find out if I have these things. The vehicle has side air bags, but the "air bag" labelling for these is up near the tops of the doors. How do I know if I have safety belt pretensioners?

Reply to
hillpc
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Is this a Job 1 car, the seat elements will be module controlled... and the switch will be a momentary contact tye. If it is a Job 2 car, the heated seat switch will be a "latching" type (push it once for on... push it again for off) that feeds power to the heater matrixes directly.

Which system you have will dictate the diagnostic steps necessary...

Reply to
Jim Warman

Reply to
hillpc

holy sweating butt batman!!!!!

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Reply to
ds549

Fixed now; thanks. I have the Job 2 car with the switch doing all the work. I ended up not unhooking any connectors, just unbolting the seats and tipping them back so I could access all the stuff underneath. Bad switch, stuck on all the time. I moved the passenger side switch to the driver seat and left the hole open on the passenger side. The switch looks fairly intricate inside, with 2 LED's and 5 or

6 terminals. I'll see how much they want to rook me for a new one before I try to delve deeper into it at my leisure.

Thanks again. Just in time for the warm weather; no sweaty butt now.

Reply to
hillpc

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