Heated Seats in 99 Suburban

hey, welcome to the Suburban Club.

It could be just about anything from a blown fuse to a loose wire. I would almost always start with the simple and work upwards. Check the fuses and see if there is one that's blown.

Anyone else have experience with this?

We've check the fuses and they are fine. I'm wondering if it might be a broken heating element in the seat itself. Anyone know where and what to check as far as voltage readings? What would be involved in replacing the heating elements in the seat?

See if the heating elements are the same between the two front seats. if you can swap the one that works out for the one that doesn't you can see if it's the element or the connection to it.

^ was thinking about that, but wasn't sure how involved it is to take apart the seat. I want to make sure I plan enough time to work on this or the wifey will be mad if she's without a car because i have the seats in pieces. :shock:

Bolt some milk crates down in the mean time :lol:

im thinking that it could be a bad fuse also. never can go wrong with checking. good luck on it

ya the old milk crate trick.
no seriously tho my vavorite tool for testing electic sercuts is a plain old test light. check the wires under the seat for juice first if the fuses are good. then if the thing has juice going to it i wood say its screwed. if the wife minds the milk crate idea, and mine does. take the passenger seat out. and take the heat unit out of that one. two reasons for that, 1 the wife isnt sitting on milk crate, and two you get to see just how hard it is and how long it will take. or you could just swap the seats from one side to the other. if theyu are both heated and electric it shouldnt take 20 min. to do the swap. then you can work on the bad seat first. if the passenger seat isnt electric just swap the seat not the base that way she still has the adjustable seat and the heat.
dam dude where are you that you need the heeted seat already?

cool now im 3com. no biggy i forgot to login manually but once i did it took it all right steve

99% of those that go bad are the unit itself. The leather bottom has to be unstitched and the unit replaced. Expensive. If you get lucky, and I do mean lucky, the switch will be bad.

Just curious if Karey is still an active user on here or not. :-?

I was really hoping there was a complete answer for this thread. My drivers side heated seat doesn't work, but the passenger does. All of my fuses are good and I have replaced the switch in the seat and have verified that it is getting power to the switch. I haven't pulled the seat yet to check anything inside, but I guess that is next.

the heating element on the '99 'burb is part of the leather cover. It has been a while since i changed one but i know it involved removing the seat, removing the seat back from the base and then removing the cover from the base. i beleive you will need hog ring pliers to reassemble the cover onto the base. There are alot of other components inside the seat if you have power lumbar etc. The last cover i priced from GM was for an '01, and it was $375, but the heater in that seat is in the cushion, not the cover, so it was cheaper.

Thanks for the information, Jack. Do you know if the driver seat has the feature like the passenger seat where the seat belt has to be connected before the element will turn on. It still doesn't work on my driver's side with the seat belt attached, but it may be somewhere to start checking.

No, the driver seat should not require the seat belt. The passenger seat does so that the element does not burn up if there is no one riding in the passenger seat. if the vehicle is running most likely there is someone in the driver seat.

i also have this problem with my 99 suburban. it is definitely getting power but i think one of the wires coming out of the switch was bad or something not too worried though alot of other stuff to fix first.

Just thought I'd add a post here since this seems to be the most replied to thread on this topic.

This last winter the driver's side seat heater stopped working on our 99 Suburban. Interesting that most of these that I've seen posted are the 99 suburban driver's side. Don't think it's worth sinking $400 plus a Saturday afternoon into this. As br2819 said, too much other stuff to fix first. Maybe in 10 years when I'm putting the finishing touches on the complete restore!

Funny,my 99 Burb has the same problem.Probably will never fix it.Needs a front end rebuild and lots of other work.

If you figure the driver's seat gets the most wear and tear, it's bound to be the first one to fail. If you buy a basic multi-meter (found at many electronics stores for $20-$100, depending on functions and quality), you can get a reading using the ohms function. A broken heater element will read open, where as a unit that doesn't have a broken/snapped section of the heating element will have some sort of ohms rating/resistance.

I also just bought a 1999 Suburban. Leather heated seat doesn't work on the driver's side. The seat is also in pretty tough shape. I've been checking junk yards. Does anyone know if seats from a new suburban will fit in the 1999 (prior generation) without issues?