Heated seats via FordPass

[imnuts]

When you're sitting in the seat, it's insulating the seat surface with your warmth, so it heats up and gets "hot". When you're not there, there's nothing to keep the heat in and a lot of air in the uncompressed cushion as well. I'd check the seats if you had something on them during the remote start trial to insulate them from the cold cabin more and maybe compress them as well and see the results.

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[WalterMitty]

You've got me all worried now.

I have a 2023, and use the Ford Pass app to turn the truck on all the time so that I can come into a warm truck (heat on, seat on). The default is that the seat is turned on high (all 3 bars), so when I actually fully start the truck, I always have to remember to put it down to 1 bar. So I know all was working fine.

That said, I haven't tried it in a while, due to some travel and working from home. In the past, I know that I have had it set to AUTO, and it turns on the Heater and the Seat and both are warm when I get to the truck (don't have the heated steering wheel thanks to Ford deleting it).

Today truck is currently in a parking lot of my commuter train station. The temp on the dash was -2 when I left it there this morning. I will test it out tonight. My move is to use the FP app to start it up about one stop before mine.

I will let you know how it goes. I'm going to be really bummed if all isn't working as it once was.

I did just get an update on Jan 11, to 6.5.0. I hope this didn't mess it up.

All seems to be working as before.

Staring Mechanizm: Ford Pass App

Running Time: Did not track, maybe around 5min

Outside Temp: 6

Truck Remote Started: Heat was blowing, seat was warmish to the touch. No indicator lights on seat heater are on.

Truck Fully Started: Heat blowing, Temp set on "HI". All 3 Seat Heat Indicator Lights are on.

@JIMFOUNTAIN Thanks for all the actual data, versus "feels".

@imnuts I agree with your theory. In my case it was 6 degrees outside and the truck sat outside from about 7am (at -3) until about 5pm when it as 6. When remoted started, the seat heater was working, but it's pushing heat into big pieces of flat foam, covered by large patches of perforated leather. The heat being produced is being dissipated over those large areas and then escaping. Then when my obese frame sits on the seat, it's getting trapped and concentrated.

All that said, I will never forgive Ford for deleting my heated steering wheel.

 

[JIMFOUNTAIN]

When you're sitting in the seat, it's insulating the seat surface with your warmth, so it heats up and gets "hot". When you're not there, there's nothing to keep the heat in and a lot of air in the uncompressed cushion as well. I'd check the seats if you had something on them during the remote start trial to insulate them from the cold cabin more and maybe compress them as well and see the results.

Could be.... but then why does the steering wheel get hot. Maybe because the seat is designed assuming a butt in it and the wheel is designed to have a gloved hand somewhere on it. But I thought of a test....

Next step is a standard start and a 6 minute passenger seat heating session (with no butt). I will measure temps on the seat to see how warm it gets with no passenger. But won't be today .. outside temp now up to 74 degrees right now. Gotta love Texas!

 

[imnuts]

Steering wheel has less foam padding, and the heating element is closer to the exterior that you touch. I don't know how much power either can draw, but that could be a factor, as could hearing element design.

 

[Zyvin]

Trying to remember, but I believe the hvac, seats, and steering wheel have to all be in auto mode. I.e. o if you just set climate control to auto it will only do the hvac. Just making sure everyone has set all 3 to auto.

 

[Kshort62]

When you're sitting in the seat, it's insulating the seat surface with your warmth, so it heats up and gets "hot". When you're not there, there's nothing to keep the heat in and a lot of air in the uncompressed cushion as well. I'd check the seats if you had something on them during the remote start trial to insulate them from the cold cabin more and maybe compress them as well and see the results.

I understand what you are getting at , my only response was my experience with the seat lights on and the seat being warm to hot when I got in my truck ..

 

[WBravo]

Not sure if this will be relevant or not but I was able to confirm that both my primary profile and the guest profile shows my seats as "auto" on the remote start menu. I will disable this on my guest profile and see if they do indeed still come on with a remote start or not with my primary active later today.

Again, if you haven't created an individual profile, I'm not sure this will mean a thing or not but I'm personally curious how deep that particular bug goes.

My vehicle's behavior so far:
Remote Start (App or Key) will activate the seats (No HSW on my truck, if anyone wants to get rid of one, I know a guy that'll buy it. It's me. I'm the guy.) and the HVAC. The lights for the heated seats remain off until the push button is pressed as usual. Seats appear to be warm prior to entry but I'll take a digital temp gun and confirm this.

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