A few days ago, I turned my heated seats on and noticed part of my back was getting hotter than it should. I reach my hand down and feel something very hot coming out of the seat. I finally turn around to look at what's going on and part of the heating element on the lumbar support is burning through the seat cover! It's crazy, and certainly something that shouldn't ever happen, but it seems unlikely MINI is going to offer any help as I'm way out of warranty.

I'd like to repair this in some way and am considering an aftermarket heating element or possibly putting in the second generation MINI heating element. It's number 6 in this diagram:

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts...19&hg=52&fg=10

Is anyone familiar with the wiring for the heated seats on the 2nd generation MINIs? Would I be able to splice the 1st gen connector onto the wiring of the 2nd gen heating element? Seems like the circuitry would be pretty similar - seat heaters are basically resistors.

The shape of the seats seems similar enough that that wouldn't be a big issue.

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

I should add that the reason I'm not looking at putting a 1st gen heating element in is that it's not offered on it's own. You have to replace the foam and cover as one unit on the 1st gen seats...and, if it fails once, it will probably fail again - I'd like get something more robust while I'm at it.

 

I think I'm going to give these a try:

http://www.heatedseatkits.com/heated...at2/index.html

$60 for a replacement heating element. Anyone have experience with them?