Cooled seats not cooling

[jbailer]

I believe if you sign up at owner.ford.com you'll automatically be notified. I seem to recall something about that. Going to hit up the dealer with mine later this week since I got some first hand confirmation on what GT Pony patiently :frusty: drilled into my head a while back. :cheers:

I'm registered on that site and never saw anything about the brake TSB. I learned about that here.

Sponsored

 

[lwilliams]

Ford rep called me today because 2nd new dash has arrived at the dealer and wanted to talk about me taking it in.

I told her about the seats still not cooling on the backs. She repeated what the dealer had said about connecting "the computer" and the seats were working properly. I told her what some have said here about Ford woking on the "fix". She checked while I waited. She came back to the phone and told me that there was nothing in Ford's info about a repair or fix coming for this. I again repeated what some have been told and she assured me that there was nothing like that in any Ford service info.

She did say that they have weekly meetings, next one is Wednesday morning, and that maybe some info will be given then. She is supposed to let me know if it does.

 

[RubyRed15]

She did say that they have weekly meetings, next one is Wednesday morning, and that maybe some info will be given then. She is supposed to let me know if it does.

Translation: "I know just what to say to get this ass off the phone so I can go have a smoke break!"

 

[lwilliams]

Translation: "I know just what to say to get this ass off the phone so I can go have a smoke break!"

You're probably right! (But I hope not, for all of us.)

 

[AndreG]

My seats barely cool anymore. It's also very inconsistent. Sometimes even on high it feels like it's turned off.

When it was new it used to get very cold.

 

[tsunami]

The perforations supposedly allow the cooled air to escape the seat backs. But your body blocks most of the holes, so the cooled air simply mixes back with heated waste air thereby warming the leather. Equivalent to running a refrigerator in a sealed box.

 

[Old 5 Oh]

The perforations supposedly allow the cooled air to escape the seat backs. But your body blocks most of the holes, so the cooled air simply mixes back with heated waste air thereby warming the leather. Equivalent to running a refrigerator in a sealed box.

This is part of it, maybe a major part. Droid Junky has demonstrated there are some mechanical flaws with the cool-side ducting as well, but you make a point that I have noticed and have written about here before. If I keep my back just a bit away from the leather, there is some cool flow that gets through. But as you note, firmly covering all the air outlets with my back effectively blocks all air flow and causes some kind of recirculation, which is never good when there's hot-side flow and cool-side flow in close proximity. Just as running a window air-conditioner inside a building will actually heat the building, the little Peltier coolers in the seat have to reject heat somewhere in order to make cool air, and if the rejected heat ends up in the seatback, well, you just have another type of seat heater.

Overall, it's becoming clear this is what is known technically as a dumb-ass design. The coolers don't work as designed, and even amongst all the bright minds and engineers on this site (much less at Ford) no one seems to have a good solution in mind. In a perfect world, rejected heat from the Peltier units would go to the cabin return air ducts and be recirculated through the AC system or dumped outside. But that's complex, bulky, expensive, and beyond the capabilities of the current air-handling system.

I was really excited to have cooled seats, and still like the idea. But it's clear there's a lot of work to do on this system before it can be even marginally effective for more than a few minutes at a time.

 

[papinist]

yes it would be a complex system, but I paid about 600 eur for cooled/heated seats! All the system reported in this thread has about how much? 50 dollars of materials? Two peltier units, two small fans, some sensors and two plastic-mold enclosures.
Sure we have to pay R&D too... wait, what? Such a dumbass design cannot cost even my single 600 eur!
I am expecting bad design from an ebay-30-dollar aftermarket solution, not from a big company like Ford (and not for 600 eur).
Be sure that when I receive my car, if it works like yours (and IT WILL WORKS like yours) I will annoy my dealer so long that he will found a solution himself to stop me bothering him!!

 

[tsunami]

Is there some way to add an additional length to the exhaust port so that the hot air could be routed down and out of the seat back? Maybe some kind of wire-coil tubing.

 

[Zemedici]

holy shit, sorry guys - didn't even think to update this thread. I've got the unit, lemme go get it and take some pictures

 

[Zemedici]

Ok here's the pictures of the cooling/heating unit

 

[Buhbuhj]

Is there some way to add an additional length to the exhaust port so that the hot air could be routed down and out of the seat back? Maybe some kind of wire-coil tubing.

I took some 1 inch plastic tubing cut it about 10 inches long and inserted 1 end right under the fan on the unit in the seat. I routed it down and out of the bottom, it sticks out of the flap about 1/2 inch under the seat or so. Just doing that my back coolers are working way better. They still don't cool very well when the windows are down(I can tell its making cool air but it's not as good as the seat bottoms) but when I had the windows up with the A/C on my back was very cold. Shout outs to Droid_Junky for the idea.

 

[Zemedici]

Few major design issues I see with the unit.

1) There is not near enough separation between the 'hot side' and 'cold side' of the unit.

2) The duct that controls the airflow, from looking at it, I believe is exhaust from the hot side/heater is not near long enough, the hot air is not dissipated well enough. Not to mention this assembly sits about in the middle of your shoulder blades behind you, and that measley 5" duct should be extended to the end of the seat.

3) This duct is insanely flimsy. Not to mention its too thin, and the opening at the end is not near big enough.

I'll add more as I think of them/look at the pictures some more.

I feel that if this unit was a bit broader and had better separation of the heating element from the cooling element, the duct was longer and sturdier/thicker with a broader opening, it would be exponentially more efficient.

 

[Darko66]

If you look back at the original images Droid Junky took up inside the seat, you'll see that the flexible duct goes to the seat and isn't the exhaust outlet. The heat just comes out directly from the other opening next to the duct. This is different than the units used on other fords that have the two outlets at 90° from each other with the cold side plugging directly into the seat (no flex tube) and the hot side vented off via tubing.

 

[Zemedici]

If you look back at the original images Droid Junky took up inside the seat, you'll see that the flexible duct goes to the seat and isn't the exhaust outlet. The heat just comes out directly from the other opening next to the duct. This is different than the units used on other fords that have the two outlets at 90° from each other with the cold side plugging directly into the seat (no flex tube) and the hot side vented off via tubing.

yeah I saw that but was hoping it was an exhaust vent. Even more disappointing.

Sponsored