Cooled seats not cooling

Ebm said:

Are the cooled and heated seats covered under Ford ESP? Mine are acting weird.

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Depends on which ESP plan you have. It's is the full plan, then almost everything is covered just like the original factory warranty.

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GT Pony said:

Depends on which ESP plan you have. It's is the full plan, then almost everything is covered just like the original factory warranty.

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I have Premium Care. I hope heated and cooled seats are covered.

Edit: Just talked to Ford. The guy on the phone made it seem like it wasn't covered. What's the point of an expensive warranty if the things most likely to malfunction or break aren't covered. :( This is depressing.

Ebm said:

I have Premium Care. I hope heated and cooled seats are covered.

Edit: Just talked to Ford. The guy on the phone made it seem like it wasn't covered. What's the point of an expensive warranty if the things most likely to malfunction or break aren't covered. :( This is depressing.

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If it's Premium Care ESP then it should be covered. The guy you talked to at Ford doesn't know jack about the ESP warranty plans - they're just a dummy reading from a list which can't list every single thing covered in the PremiumCare ESP. Just because it's not specifically listed in the long list of items (they can't list everything), doesn't mean it's not covered.

Read the part in yellow that says: "The Ford Protect PremiumCARE Extended Service Plan is so comprehensive, it’s easier to refer you to what isn’t covered – here are the highlights:"

I see nothing in there that says heated/cooled seats are excluded.
https://www.floodfordesp.com/pdf/PremiumCARE_Ford_ESP.pdf

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GT Pony said:

If it's Premium Care ESP then it should be covered. The guy you talked to at Ford doesn't know jack about the ESP warranty plans - they're just a dummy reading from a list which can't list every single thing covered in the PremiumCare ESP. Just because it's not specifically listed in the long list of items (they can't list everything), doesn't mean it's not covered.

Read the part in yellow that says: "The Ford Protect PremiumCARE Extended Service Plan is so comprehensive, it’s easier to refer you to what isn’t covered – here are the highlights:"

I see nothing in there that says heated/cooled seats are excluded.
https://www.floodfordesp.com/pdf/PremiumCARE_Ford_ESP.pdf

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I was just a little worried. I'm at 35,950 and wanted to make sure I didn't need to park it until I take it in.

Ebm said:

I have Premium Care. I hope heated and cooled seats are covered.

Edit: Just talked to Ford. The guy on the phone made it seem like it wasn't covered. What's the point of an expensive warranty if the things most likely to malfunction or break aren't covered. :( This is depressing.

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This is how every warranty works in Italy :(

Impossible design...

Think about it.... if you bought a room (window) air conditioner but installed it in the middle of the room...it will NOT cool the room, cold air will just circulate back to the warm exhaust air side. In fact, the room will get even warmer because of the energy generated by the unit. As long as the cold air in the seat is mostly trapped in the seat...the seat will eventually get warmer.
The only way to get the seat to really cool is to use a much larger fan to force the cold air out through the seat's perforations.

tsunami said:

The only way to get the seat to really cool is too use a much larger fan to force the cold air out through the seat's perforations.

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But then the driver becomes an air hockey puck.

tsunami said:

Think about it.... if you bought a room (window) air conditioner but installed it in the middle of the room...it will NOT cool the room, cold air will just circulate back to the warm exhaust air side. In fact, the room will get even warmer because of the energy generated by the unit. As long as the cold air in the seat is mostly trapped in the seat...the seat will eventually get warmer.
The only way to get the seat to really cool is too use a much larger fan to force the cold air out through the seat's perforations.

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Two hard truths:

1) These seats can NEVER be made to work. The basic design was intended for use in a sedan with underseat AC ducts that would cool the thermoelectric devices (TED). A complete redesign would be needed to make a seat that could function drawing ambient air alone. In addition to increased airflow, one would probably have to reconfigure the seat so that the heat rejected by the hot side of the seat bottom TED did not warm the seat back TED.

2) Because most owners never had cooled seats before, they did not notice theirs were utterly nonfunctional compared to other cooled seats. The lack of their complaints creates an illusion that there is no problem or that the problem is occasional, etc.

I noticed that Ford mentions 'heated seats' for the 2018 but nothing about 'cooled seats'. Guess they realized that they had no idea on how to fix the problem without a big design change in the cabin/seats.

tsunami said:

I noticed that Ford mentions 'heated seats' for the 2018 but nothing about 'cooled seats'. Guess they realized that they had no idea on how to fix the problem without a big design change in the cabin/seats.

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Well, they already failed twice... sounds like they learned that this is beyond their expertise.

tsunami said:

I noticed that Ford mentions 'heated seats' for the 2018 but nothing about 'cooled seats'. Guess they realized that they had no idea on how to fix the problem without a big design change in the cabin/seats.

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The 2018 EB Premium lists "Heated and cooled leather trimmed front bucket seats"

I have a 2016 Mustang convertible. It has heated and cooled seats. The heating works great. Very hot. The cooling really does not work at all. The seat bottom cools a little on the highest setting, but I would swear the back actually gets warmer. It does not make any difference if the AC is on or off. Settings 1 and 2 make no perceptible difference from off. Only setting 3 has any effect at all - and it is barely anything. I have checked with a laser temp gun, so it is not just a "seat of the pants" measurement.



My Lexus (RX350) also has cooled seats and on its highest setting those feel like you are sitting in a cooler of ice water.



I'm not going to read 100+ pages of this tread. Having been away from the forums for awhile, I was wondering if there was ever a fix for these not-really-cooling seats?



Yes, I took it to the dealer when the car was brand new - in summer of 2016 - but they said there was nothing they could do. At the time, owners on the internet also agreed there wasn't much anyone could do to make them work.



I'm just checking in a couple years later to see if that is still the case.



Thanks.

Heat exchanger in my 2015 seat back does not adequately shed waste heat. There was A TSB to add a snorkel to get air to the back, but many have said it does not work.

I am 6’3 and ~180. I too used a laser thermometer and I believe I posted my test results in here a few years ago.

I leave a gap between the seat back and the rear seat and pump the coldest air ican to floor and face vents. Cold air to floor helps system work when seats are ncool in the morning. But No matter what I do the seat back will only get hotter if it is already hot from being parked in sun with sunshade in place and windows cracked.

does anyone have a TED / seat AC unit (working or not) that they would either lend me for a couple of weeks, or sell me for cheap?

i have an idea i think i could implement that would be very cost friendly that could potentially make the device work much more effectively!

Please PM me! Thanks!

can anyone tell me, if the seat AC unit is the "same" on an F150? the fan looks to be in a different orientation, but that looks like it can just be swapped around by cutting the zip ties and rotating the fan...

i ask, bc i found a TED for a mustang for 60 bucks, or i can get the F150 unit for half that on ebay....