'03 explorer heated seat won't shut off; disable pretensioners to troubleshoot?

[hillpc]

Driver side seat heater on all the time, momentary switch on seat just
turns off the indicator as long as I hold it in. Supposed 10 minute
timer doesn't shut it down. Passenger side is fine.

Before checking to see if the seat-mounted switch is really momentary
or stuck on, I'm wondering if there's a common failure mechanism
here. I suppose if the seat module's at fault I'm talking some
bucks. In that case I might just unplug the seat heater in the
spring.

There are also warnings in the service manual that advise disabling
seat mounted side air bags and safety belt pretensioners before
probing circuit connectors. It seems they could inflate in your
face. So I also have to find out if I have these things. The vehicle
has side air bags, but the "air bag" labelling for these is up near
the tops of the doors. How do I know if I have safety belt
pretensioners?

[Jim Warman]

Is this a Job 1 car, the seat elements will be module controlled... and the
switch will be a momentary contact tye. If it is a Job 2 car, the heated
seat switch will be a "latching" type (push it once for on... push it again
for off) that feeds power to the heater matrixes directly.

Which system you have will dictate the diagnostic steps necessary...

"hillpc" <hil...@emailaccount.com> wrote in message
news:a6277c3b-d63b-4339...@b1g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...

[hillpc]

Thanks. I'll have to check if the heated seat module is present.

[ds...@webtv.net]

holy sweating butt batman!!!!!

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[hillpc]

On Apr 9, 8:25 pm, "Jim Warman" <mecha...@telusplanet.net> wrote:

> Is this a Job 1 car, the seat elements will be module controlled... and the
> switch will be a momentary contact tye. If it is a Job 2 car, the heated
> seat switch will be a "latching" type (push it once for on... push it again
> for off) that feeds power to the heater matrixes directly.
>
> Which system you have will dictate the diagnostic steps necessary...

Fixed now; thanks. I have the Job 2 car with the switch doing all the
work. I ended up not unhooking any connectors, just unbolting the
seats and tipping them back so I could access all the stuff
underneath. Bad switch, stuck on all the time. I moved the passenger
side switch to the driver seat and left the hole open on the passenger
side. The switch looks fairly intricate inside, with 2 LED's and 5 or
6 terminals. I'll see how much they want to rook me for a new one
before I try to delve deeper into it at my leisure.

Thanks again. Just in time for the warm weather; no sweaty butt now.