Anybody ever installed heated front seats on a car that doesn't have them? I have a 87 TDT and would like to add them. I have a donor car at the wrecking yard, different color interior of course but was wondering is it easy relatively easy or really difficult. I am pretty handy but sometimes it just isn't worth it.

I know a forum member who performed this task. He got some parts from me. I send him a link to your thread and ask him to weigh in on the process. I think heated seats are in MY future.

Good Luck.

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daw_two
Germantown, TN

Links:
Sold last car --- 05/2012 1984 300D Light Ivory, Red interior
Cluster Needles Paint
New Old Stock (NOS) parts

Past:
3/2008 1986 300SDL "Coda"
04/2010 1965 190D(c) "Ben"
& many more

Hey! I was going to transplant the heated seat from my donor to my daily driver, too... The seat is yanked and sitting there... but what I did instead what put a sheepskin in my car instead. I was gifted with it in summer actually, to prevent hot-summer-seat syndrome.

You don't need heated seat in winter with this thing! So I probably won't follow through. So anyway, here's a half-executed idea.. I put the heated seat switch in the spot on the shift console where the audio fader came out (because I didn't need that with my Pioneer replacement of Becker). Fitz perfectly there. Of course, I was only going to do the driver's seat. But if you want to do both, then just take the console from the donor too. (Mine was in worse shape so I left it).

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Cheers!
Scott McPhee

1987 300D

Ya but how much trouble to run wires etc? Are the cars pre wired or no?

answer is no,t he cars are not pre-wired. the easiest way to do this for a w124, is to take donor parts off a w126. easy way to tell is if there are two wires and plugs in front of the shifter, before the ashtray. there is a pocket that sits there, either just a pocket, or a pocket with one, two or three switch holes. switches are two heated seat, two heated seat plus horn, or just horn. if these wires are there, the car has at least front heated seats. you can remove the elements and wiring harness by just cutting the leather from the back of the seat just under the seat back, and pulling out the elements or using a box cutter to cut the seat top. ugly, but the ohter way is time consuming and involves removing the entire seat skin from the seat.

then you've got to remove the carpets and grab the entire wiring harness and the two relays. the rest is referring to the EPC to see where the harness plugs in. not a fun task. YOu might be better off going with one of those Homedics seat covers which plug into a lighter socket with heat and massage

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Just got thru revamping all leather in wife's 300sdl. She's always wanted heated seats, as she's always cold. NOT hard to do at all. If you seats are in good shape you must remove covers. Heating elements were from donor 560sel. They are finger shaped..ie one finger goes inside each pleat. Separtate elements for seat and backs. Trick that works..take about three feet of plastic sheet like builder supply has (visqueen) X about 6 inches wide. You can feed the heaters in the empty pockets w/ part of paint stick or yardstick. Elements are sourced from rear of seat or bottom of back. After installing the elements, wrap one of the pads w/ plastic toward one end of the strip. Feed empty end thru pocket using paint stick or yardstick. Once plastic is thru, remove stick and pull on plastic holding on to element to prevent sliding. Once pad is in place, hold end of pad and pull plastic out..repeat.
I salvaged wiring from donor car along w/ relays and switches. Relays are located for front seats below the heat duct for rear foot well. Wiring needs to have end for relay, connection for both elements, switch plug and as far as you can get to the upper end under the dash. Should have three wires on feed end. Brown ground, grey/blue illumination and red for power..one harness each side. I couldn't get the top end so I had to cut wires. Grey/blue is easy to get - one screw on drivers side near upper footwell behind counsol.
Original wiring goes to 16 amp red fuse..ours was on card for fuse box. I connected feed wire to back of original fuse and fed thru dash.

Momma now happy!

Good luck w/yours, PM if you have questions.

Mark
PS- THANKS to Dawtwo for parts ! ! ! !

there were three kinds of seat heater elements for the w126. the long 'finger style' which is almost impossible to stuff into the pleats unless they were stitched with them to begin with:



the facelift sedans had a very thin filmy one that is impossible to remove without ruining it and goes all the way to the seat piping. the worst kind to try to retrofit.

then the SEC's had their own style meant to go on SEC seats only (you might get them to work on w124 coupes as well). these are the best in terms of durability so if you can get them to work go with these:

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In line with what the original poster asked about!

Installing heated seats from one 124 car into another 124 car is either easy or not quite so easy. The difference is the year of the seat’s donor car, early 86 to 89 or 90 use a wiring circuit with individual relays for each seat, later years use a single relay located under the rear seat mounted along side the larger multi-function relay. The main difference in difficulties is running the wiring all the way under the carpeting to reach under the rear seat as opposed to only needing to get under the front carpeting.

In both the wiring loom terminates in a five pole power/ground distribution block located on the driver’s side front firewall left hand side. The wiring travels from there rearward to just behind the frame channel onto which the seat front bolts to, then it runs along that frame channel up over the transmission hump and to the center of the passenger seat. At each front seat basically in their center there are two 2-pole female connector plugs into which the bottom and back seat heater elements plug into, on the transmission hump area under the console the wiring runs forward around the shifter and there are two multi contact connectors for the seat heater switches.

The later model wiring loom is similar with the difference being the run to the rear seat underside where its relay is usually installed.

From the donor you want the seats obviously, the wiring loom and connections and the relay/s. There are also a few clips that position and secure the connectors that you’d want to grab while you’re in there. You will want to check the heaters for both seats bottom and backs for continuity before you do anything, be certain that the seats/heaters you’re getting are operable and don’t have broken wiring before you spend the time and energy pulling them!

Using a later seat in an early vehicle can present a problem if the seat positioning transmission has different electrical connections located at the front underside of the seat. You would need to at the very least count the number of pins/receptacles in the connector blocks. If there is a difference the easiest solution would be to swap the later style seat bottoms and backs onto your early design seat positioning transmissions.

You’ll need both of your seats out of the vehicle to install the wiring loom, pop up the door sills, and loosen the center console in order to lift it some. Fish the wiring over the console and up to the shifter surround.

With the wiring in place, get the seats inside the vehicle connect the wiring to them and make sure the seats move properly before you bolt them in place.