I just picked up an 02 Cooper S. It has leather seats but doesn't have heated seats, which I'd really like to add. I've searched some forums and some guys have successfully added heated seats. Some seem to think that many of the seats actually have the elements in them regardless of whether or not the option was actually installed.

I have 3 connectors under my seat: yellow, blue, and black Here is a picture:



From a different post, someone posted this picture, which has 2 additional black connectors:



That made me this that I was indeed missing the elements in my seat. But then I found the official Mini heated seat installation instructions:

http://motoringfile.com/howto/miniheatedseats.pdf

Here is the picture they have in the PDF showing the connector that is supposed to be for the elements in the seats, and it looks like the third black connector that I have in my seats:



Can anyone verify what connector is what and whether or not my seats have the elements in them? Thanks!


http://motoringfile.com/howto/miniheatedseats.pdf

 

i asked about that from a mini dealership once. The tech said that, unless it was a factory add on, the cars will not have heated seats (as i thought elements may have just been installed on ALL seats, and you were just paying for the button basically). I was wrong, of course.

Do you have a heated seat button?

some of those sensors, are probably weight sensors for the airbags, seat belt, ect.

 

That motoringfile article expressly states that the "seat covers with the integrated heating elements are not supplied with the installation kit, and must be ordered separately..."

That, and my own gut feeling has me saying no.

 

Does anyone know the difficulty of replacing non-heated with heated seats. Say if I were able to find seats from a salvage?

 

If you could find the seats with the heating element in them, you would just have to get the wiring harness for the car itself I believe. Not totally sure how easy that is though.

*edit*- This may be of some help for that.

 

Yeah, but reading on another thread, at least one guy found elements in his seats (see the second picture in my original thread post), though his car wasn't ordered with heated seats. He had to add the buttons and a bit of wiring harness to get it going.

I'm new to Minis but I do know that it is not uncommon in car manufacturing to include elements in seats whether or not the car ends up having the option fully installed and available. That's why I was hoping someone would have specific knowledge about these Minis.

 

Yeah, I found that link during my searches too. It wouldn't be hard, assuming I actually have the elements. I'm just trying to figure out if I do or not.

 

Actually replacing the seats would be easy. You'd also have to get the buttons to turn the heated seats on and there's a bit of wiring harness you'd need.

 

I know that I am a little late to the party here, but I did this mod to my 07 R52 so I may have some relevant information.

You do not have the heating elements in your seats. You would have a second unconnected black connector under the seat if you did.

Some seats do indeed have heating elements in them even though they were not ordered. Mine did!

I ordered the wiring harness kit from BMW, it was over $200! I had to remove most of the interior of my car to install the wiring, it took the better part of a day. If I had to do it again, I could probably do it in 3-4 hours.

The seat heaters work great, the switches look great, and I will NEVER own another car without seat heaters.

 

That's what I figured, but I thought someone would know for sure. Thanks for the input.

 

I had a local seat upholstry place install heated seats for my 2002 Cooper. They did a great job (part of their business is installing heated seats at dealerships for other makes of cars that didn't have them standard) They installed the switches in the stock location (using rockers instead of buttons). With mine, I don't need to turn the heaters back on after each car restart, it stays in the position I last left it.

Photo of the switches Here