Thanks for moving this where it belonged Krut...

I took my seat covers off yesterday to do a little cleaning and low and behold ashes fell out of the one on the driver seat back. Here's what I found. I know this is from something electrical in the seat, presumeably the seat heater. The seat cover completely covers this whole area so there was no way it was a mean person sticking a cig in there or anything. In fact the seat cover only had a bit of the foam backing burned and melted, the surface fabric is fine. The vast majority of the damage is in the seat itself.

The dealer can't look at it till Monday. Don't think I'll be running the seat heaters in the interim! A bit surprising to think that could happen and I didn't have a clue. I'm sure I didn't smell it cause I only run the seat heaters when I've got the top down...

I looked at REAL OEM and it appears the power cable for the heaters comes out at the back edge and center so that seems to match up. I only found two instances googling mentioning actually burning of a MINI seat from a seat heater, and foundon of a BMW with pics that looked identical in damage except for the location.



And to help understand where this is heres a wider shot.

 

What kind of seat covers were they?

Did they use hooks to hold them in place? May have damaged a wire with the hooks.

 

No hooks. They just have a flat flap that comes through and velcros up on the back, well away from this area.

 

Should this thread be in the Gen1 stock issues/problems forum?

 

Yup, just realized that and was heading off to ask a mod to fix my booboo. I meant to put it there of course...

 

Maybe the burn was from that magnifying glass. I used burn ants like that when I was a kid. You might want to remove it from the car.

 

I thought it was a mirror?

 

I assumed he was kidding. Yes, the mirror was there to get the photo of the bottom edge of the cushion easily. The seond shot it just to give a idea of the setup for the shot and what area the shot is of.

 

I moved.. not a problem to accomodate! :-)

 

Fixed. New seat installed.

It turns out this 'happens'. Not unheard of. Not common but not unheard of.

 

Wow - that's a bit scary...

 

If this happen to my seat, I would gladly pay the difference for the GP or new JCW Recaros to be installed. Wishful upon a star thinking, but it would be righteous.

 

Well, mine was under warrenty so no cost.

And I do have something to spice them up. Wet Okole seat covers. And they are the sport seats at least.