Heated seat problem.

Evening all.... my 1996 Transit Duetto has heated seats. The driver's side works fine but the passenger side does not - the light on the switch comes on but the seat does not warm up.

Under the seat are some wires going into the middle of the seat base. There is a 12v supply getting this far when the switch is turned on. I have not yet investigated further but am guessing that there is a thermostat and heater element built into the seat.

Can the heater element and thermostat be replaced? Are parts available? Not a feature that I need right now but it would be nice to get it sorted before the winter.

ta

If you have 12V power, the next thing to check would be that you have a good earth connection - I don't know specifically for the Transit but these things usually go back to an earth point under the seat and it's often damp there.

I'm going to guess that OEM parts are unlikely to be widely available because heated seats on Mk5 Transits would have been very rare indeed - white vans did not usually get fitted with those sorts of options back then! It doesn't necessarily follow and a call to a Ford dealer may be worth it, but I suspect that if the element has failed you would have to go with one of the aftermarket kits - which aren't actually that expensive.

The passenger seat heater fitted to our Duetto never worked. The wiring had been disconnected when the seat swivel was fitted. I found the same wires under the seat as yours and the switch did light up.
I assume this was done by Autosleeper during the convertion.
At the time we had the Duetto I was working very early morning shifts during a cold winter . The heated seat was a bonus. I miss them in our Rienza.
Management wanted a heated steering wheel as well as heated seats in our Saab.