Preconditioning - heated seats

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jamiebaruch

Member
Joined
Jan 19, 2016
Messages
6
Does anyone know if you can change a setting to allow for the heated seats to be activated as part of the preconditioning?

Many thanks in advance.

J
 
I'm not aware of this as a setting. Guess it's also discouraged, as seat hating should only be switched on for occupied seats.

I've got a similar question re heated mirror and rear screen heating as part of recon. This would be a nice to have. As a workaround, when departure time is 10 mins away, I put the car in Ready mode and enable mirror/rear screen heating.
 
I've seen several times that the precon feature doesn't allow variations...did I read correctly that it chooses 70F/21C for the cabin warmer? If not, I'll jack that thing up to 80 before I turn the car off and plug it in :)

But yes, you could always run out and switch to ready to turn these things on. With the fabric seats, though, there is no cold-bottom-delay...they are easier to get into. No shock :) and they warm up fast...
 
cmj912 said:
With the fabric seats, though, there is no cold-bottom-delay...they are easier to get into. No shock :) and they warm up fast...

Bit too fast for my liking. Even when it's very cold outside, I never go beyond setting 1, to be honest.
 
Thanks for replying guys.
Looks like I'll have to do it manually if I want them preheated.
Appreciate the feedback
 
psquare said:
cmj912 said:
With the fabric seats, though, there is no cold-bottom-delay...they are easier to get into. No shock :) and they warm up fast...

Bit too fast for my liking. Even when it's very cold outside, I never go beyond setting 1, to be honest.

I don't either! 1 seems toasty enough! I have found that often it is even enough to do the "maximize range" thing and, if you've had the heat on when the car is plugged in, turn it off and just use the seat warmer.
 
A coworker of mine has a 2016 Volt and its equivalent to cabin pre-conditioning heats up the seats and the steering wheel.
 
cmj912 said:
I don't either! 1 seems toasty enough! I have found that often it is even enough to do the "maximize range" thing and, if you've had the heat on when the car is plugged in, turn it off and just use the seat warmer.

When mine was in for a software upgrade, I had a loaner i3 with leather seats. Seat heating works slower with leather. From a battery SOC perspective, I guess it's a good thing that I have to turn mine off quicker.
 
Leasi3 said:
A coworker of mine has a 2016 Volt and its equivalent to cabin pre-conditioning heats up the seats and the steering wheel.
The Volt has an ICE that can drive the car and a moderately large fuel tank...IOW, a few extra watts is not a big deal. Could BMW have done it? Sure. They opted for more range.
 
Trust me, there is ZERO need to have the heated seats activated as part of the preconditioning. They heat up super fast as soon as you turn them on. Indeed, unless you want to cook yourself, you will want to turn them down from the highest setting to the middle or lower level soon after you turn them on. Turning them on as part of preconditioning would be an unnecessary waste of precious battery juice.


jamiebaruch said:
Does anyone know if you can change a setting to allow for the heated seats to be activated as part of the preconditioning?

Many thanks in advance.

J
 
Hmmm... Is there any way to retro-fit heated seats?

It honestly wouldn't surprise me if they used the same wiring harness and seats and all it required was a button install...

Just wondering, my 2014 Tera doesn't have them and living in San Jose doesn't require them except those early 0500 drives.

Thanks!
 
psquare said:
cmj912 said:
I don't either! 1 seems toasty enough! I have found that often it is even enough to do the "maximize range" thing and, if you've had the heat on when the car is plugged in, turn it off and just use the seat warmer.

When mine was in for a software upgrade, I had a loaner i3 with leather seats. Seat heating works slower with leather. From a battery SOC perspective, I guess it's a good thing that I have to turn mine off quicker.
I've never tried the cloth seats for comparison, but I find the leather seats heat up plenty fast and never need to go above 1.
 
From what I've heard, unlike cars of old, and some still, BMW builds their harnesses for the specific vehicle which means there are no extra wires, connectors, buttons generally available to add something later without a lot of work. There are a few exceptions, one of which, I think, is satellite radio. A mirror and standing on your head and you might be able to see if there's a plug for the heater. But, you'd need to put the switches and logic board into the dash.
 
It could easily be added in a software update, I would like for the car to set the seats to level 1 5 minutes before departure time. Its too bad BMW thinks its customers are too dumb to set such settings.
 
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