Aftermarket Heated Seat Pads for 2012
 

Has anyone installed the universal Heated Seat Pads on the 2012 Focus. wanted to hear about any snags in the process and to be assured it could be done even with airbag sensors and all!!

the biggest issue i've run into on any car is getting the seat covers off and back on properly. as far as airbags go, just make sure you run everything so it doesn't go over it and you should be fine.

I am doing an install right now. Only snag so far is I need to find a power source that turns off with the car. Apparently the 12v aux jack, where I'd usually tap for heated seats, stays on long, long after the car is off.

Since there is an occupant classification sensor in the passenger seat its not exactly easy or safe to rip the seats apart if you don't know what you're doing, you may end up hurting some one badly in a collision when the air bags don't work properly, if they find out you tampered with it the insurance can also decide not to pay out.

Idk, play cautiously with this idea.

Install complete
 

As the pad goes between the seat fabric and foam there is very, very, very little risk involved in adding the element, moreso in that there are OEM seats that contain a heated seat element.

Obviously, take extreme care not to knock loose any sensors or pinch any existing wires.

That said, I finished my install today. Pretty straight forward, read the whole how-to here: http://www.focusfanatics.com/forum/s...32#post4456132

For power, my 2012 SE hatchback has existing fuses on the rear fuse panel for heated seats (both are 15A). I simply tapped those for power and ran the wires down under the door sill trim.

I'm happy that you feel like you've accomplished something, but its not quite as safe as you say, at least not per the factory service manual stating that at least for the passenger seat the sensor and the heater pad have to be replaced as a unit and not separately, so that is a potential safety risk you're ignoring. I do hope your pads work better than the factory ones with the cloth fabric because the stock ones seem to have issues and ford hides behind the normal operating characteristic for most flaws on the car.

Thanks for the heads up. I'll do some testing with weights to verify the sensor function before I have a passenger there. Still, how would adding a pad affect this any differently then if someone was wearing thick pants, like snow pants?

The oem heating element is glued/ stuck on the seat foam underneath the cover and if you have to remove/ replace it it needs to be changed as a unit. Wearing thick pants only redistributes the weight slightly, not enough to make it not sense the passenger, but putting something electrical which may either interfere electronically, or physically to the sensor it might be an issue.

It might not be a bit deal, but the O.E. part is glued into place with the sensor embedded in the foam afaik. They say it had to be replaced as a unit if you were to disassemble it for testing (if it was determined that the seat base needed a replaced element. The driver side doesn't have the same stipulations as far as I recall.

Makes sense. I wouldn't do this to fix an existing element, only to add to seats that don't already have them. Wouldn't want a short between the OEM element and the aftermarket pad.

The pads are about as thick as corduroy and have tape on the edges for sticking to the foam. The set I ordered are narrow enough that they don't touch the left or right edges of the main fabric panel. Close, but not quite. There was no need to undo the wire clips holding the fabric to the foam core. No modifications to the foam, existing seat electronics, or seat structure were done. Simply slid the pad between fabric and foam. And the seats don't need to be taken apart to do that. I only needed to undo a few plastic clips holding on the fabric.