For those of you who have heated seats, do they stay on for more than about 5 minutes at a time? Mine turn themselves off, which is rather annoying when I am trying to enjoy the car with the windows down while its cool out.
It is kind of strange but that's the way they are designed. I would love to know the rationale behind this but unfortunately there probably wasn't any thought put into it.
I think they start to get too hot after they've been on for a few minutes so I'm glad they automatically turn off. It would be cool if you could change how long they take to turn of if at all somehow though.
My wife's 2003 Mercury Mountaineer has heated seats that stay on forever (or until you turn them off, or shut off the ignition). They heat up way faster than those in my 07 GT. Ford's lawyers must have learned something between 2003 when my wife's rig was built and the introduction of heated seats on Mustangs last year.
Blame it on the Trial Lawyers Association. A few years ago there were some cases of children and people with nerve damage getting burned by sitting with the heater on to hot/to long.
I suspect that the recent cars limit the temperature and the time to avoid this. My partner's 2004 Honda Pilot has heated seats that (to me) get uncomfortably hot after a few minutes on high, I have to turn it off.
On a related note, does anyone elses recirculate turn off after like 5-10 minutes as well? It keeps switching to outside air. I mean come on, our cars aren't that air tight, and even if I breathed heavily, it would probably take me like, what a week to sufficate? lol
I hadn't noticed that, but never paid attention either. That strikes me as strange because recirculate doesn't actually keep out the outside air. It usually still mixes 10-20% outside air in with the recirculated air...