Mystery under-seat plug?
 

Hi

Doe a 986S come partially pre-wired for heated seats? I've found this plug under mu seat and have no clue what it's for - it's right at the back.

http://www.garyhanda.com/misc/plug.jpg

Cheers!

Yes. Seat heater wiring.

Any idea where this goes? I'm thinking of getting retro-fit kit and using OEM switches...would this be of any use?

You better make sure it is a wire for the heated seats first. If I recall correctly, I had a plug like that under my passenger side seat that I used for hooking up my airbag deactivation bar for my baby seat.

That is not for a seat heater. I have factory seat heaters and I have the same wire loose. Also I doubt that it has anything to do with the seats because when you rolled the seat forward the wire would rip out. Has to be something that is not mobile.

Here's a complete guide to installing seat heaters in a 986:

http://www.dennisvogel.com/heatedseats/index.html

I checked into it pretty thoroughly and determined that I could not use after market seat heater kits with the Porsche switches unless I learned a lot more about electronics and relays. I'm hoping someone with that expertise will turn their attention to is worthy project. I talked to two local upholstery shops, and they didn't want to try.

Dennis Vogel got it to work, but you can see that the costs were substantial. I think that the best route for a stock look and operation is to obtain the components from a wreck.

Thanks for that Kevin - I've had a good look at that and it makes for interesting - and initially shocking(!) reading.

Reading a little deeper, this is as close to a factory set up as you can get, right down to connector-level.

There are two massive variables in his costs. The first is $340 for upholstery labour.
I have been quoted $200 to fit my kit and the second is the kit itself:

Dennis uses OEM seat pads with the heating elements built-in, at a cost of $600 in total.
The remainder of his costs are $190 for OEM switches and relays and the rest in connectors.

My Heating kit is costing $90 with $200 to retro-fit to my seats. If I stick with OEM switches (relays are part of the kit) then I'm looking at approx. $100 in Porsche parts with a max of another $50 in cabling etc. from Radio Shack.

I'll keep you informed. :)

I am very interested in what you are able to work out.


I put a seat heater kit from Check Corporation in my 1996 Inifiniti G20. The total cost including upholstery labor was $400. Here is a link to their web site: http://www.checkcorp.com/seat-heater/seat-heaters.asp

They have a kit for the 2002 Boxster, but not for the 2000. The person that I spoke to did not know the reason for this, but speculated that there must be some aspect of the 2000 seat that interfered with the fitment. This could be something like a trim detail or a weight sensor. Of course, there could just be an error on the web site.

The issue with using the Porsche switches seems to be their interaction with the relays that activate the heating element. I'm sure that someone who understands relays could develop a good solution to this issue. It may be a matter of removing the relays that are supplied with the kit and replacing them with relays that are compatible with the Porsche switches.

LOL I just did a thread on this.. I felt like a dummy afterwards..

http://986forum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23197&highlight=airbag+deactivati on

LOL, how easy is it to remove the seat?