UNC Nick

Looking for some advice here. I'm planning on adding aftermarket seat heaters to my 2000 cab very soon and would love to find something that works with factory switches (without having to spend the $1k-ish for factory pads, elements, etc). Done some searching here and other boards and have found a few blurbs about people "in the process" of hacking Check Corp. or RAME products to work with the switches, but no follow-up information on them. Does anyone have any ideas? Not using factory switches isn't going to absolutely crush me, but I'd prefer to do so and would be pretty upset if I go ahead with the aftermarket switches now and find out how to use factory later- no need to double my work!

Thanks in advance!

Nick

wwest

Use aftermarket switches for the moment but place them out of sight, say on a bracket just under the front of the seat.

Dharn55

I just ordered the parts to install factory heated seats in my 2000 C4 cab. Cost is more $500.00-$600.00 for parts ( I ordered them from Sunset Porsche). Cost to install the new foan cushions with the seat heaters is additional, but it you are going to put in after market heaters you still have to take the covers off the seats so this whould be a wash. The parts include all the switches, relays, mounts, bezels, seat wiring harnesses, etc. etc. You do have to fabricate some wiring harnesses from the dash to the seats, although it looks like my car may already have these wires. There is a great set of instructions from another Porsche owner at www. DennisVogle.com, including wiring diagrams, picturues, step by step instructions, parts lists, etc. ect. Look for his section on installing heated seats in his Boxster. NOTE: his instruction are for a Boxster. Two big differences: 1. the switch locations on a Boxster are on the center console, on a 996 they are in the dash (so you have to add the dash bezel to his parts list) and the wiring will be slightly different, 2: the switches for the 996 are different as there is a left and right for the dash switches. Also, check to see if your car has the heated cushions already installed. Dennis points out that some cars were shipped this way, unfortunately mine wasn't. If your was, this will save almost $400.00 of the parts. I am going to set up instructions on a 996 install after I complete mine so the differences between a Boxster and a 996 are available, but think I should wait to complete the project before I post anything in case I run into Problems or issues. If you want some of the alternative parts/#'s PM me. I think the cost of installing the factory parts (i.e. cushions) is really quite close to using after market heaters, assuming you want to have a factory look for switches, etc. Let me know what you think.

UNC Nick

Dharn- Thanks VERY much. That's what I needed to hear. The purported cost of D.Vogel's installation had me thinking otherwise. At half the price, it is MUCH more palatable. Sent you a PM.

animull

Dharn - how would one determine if heated cushions are already installed?

Chrisp3

Tried to hit the www.dennisvogle.com site but got a DNS error. Anyone had any luck finding the info discussed above by Dharn55?

Dharn55

animull - Look for wiring coming out of the cushions with connectors. There is an illustration in the parts catalog which shows wiring tails that extend out of the bottom of the back cushions and the rear of the seat cushions. I pulled one of my seats out, but did not see them on mine. I have ordered the heated seat cushions and should have them in 2 weeks, At thiat time I might be able to give you better advice. The speculation that they might be in cars without the heated seat option was based on Dennis Vogels' website. Can't really confirm this.

Chrisp3

Disregard my last post......I did a google and ran accross the folllowing link. http://www.dennisvogel.com/boxster/h...ats/index.html