AmazonJohn

I believe the consensus is that the '09 and '10 MY heated seats are fine, it's just the '11 MY.

hmn4858

It was changed during the 10 build. Mine was built 10/09 and the seats are a joke. Even when it's 15F outside they don't come anywhere close to being toasty and I don't wear a coat in the car so that isn't part of the problem. Logic would say they have to be able to reprogram them but the dealer says no.

HZ60

Another long one, sorry you guys got me going again,

I think they most definitely could reprogram them if they wanted to, it's not rocket science. I work on, and program building control systems every day. It is not that difficult to make a program like that do pretty much whatever you want to as far as controlling the heating, cooling, humidification, lighting etc, in various areas. I'm fairly certain the Audi programming is similar. The Dealer can't do it w/o the code from the engineers who changed it. The big question to which I have yet to get a straight answer from anyone is why? Why did they lower the settings? Why are the 09s and some of the 10s allowed to remain as they were if there is some sort of safety issue involved? And why is Audi completely unwilling to address this issue for the people who are not happy about it. If other people think they are too hot, set the damn things down. There are 6 setting and the **** is right there! If the TV is too loud do you sit there and suffer or lower the volume? The dealer even asked me during their "diagnostics" if I wore the seatbelt. I asked what that had to do with anything? He said the seat heaters don't work unless the seatbelts are fastened. I told him I found that hard to believe and asked him if this was Audi's way of punishing people who chose not to wear them? This came from the same guy who told me that the little slotted thing next to the shift lever was a cabin temp sensor and not to block it or it could screw up the seat heaters. I don't think blocking the coin holder will really bother anything. There has to be a reason and a solution. I really hate getting such an obvious load of BS. At one point got a response similar to "AmazonJohn" a few posts back. They either said they had "never heard of that problem before" or maybe it was, "You are the first one we have had complain about this". After the dealer did the testing, they sent their data to Audi engineering for analysis. They said everything was normal. I told Customer Relations that I would like speak personally to the engineering department who analyzed their findings. I was told that would not be possible and that I was only allowed to contact Customer Relations or the Dealer. I saw a link in another thread here to a site where people had set up a petition about some other issue Audi was ignoring. They planned to send it to them when they got enough signatures. Does anyone remember that thread or have the link? I don't know how effective something like that would be but it might be worth a try. Sorry for the rant but as a previous poster commented, "They are a joke, I feel ripped off".

AmazonJohn

Nice post HZ60, although now you got me riled up. it's crazy that Audi treats its customers like morons and patronizes us by saying things like "everything is normal". Normal by whose standards? Certainly not the customers. Is it "normal" that I paid $50k for a luxury vehicle with the worst seat heaters ever and when I tell the manufacturer that it's a problem they either ignore me or lie about it? As I said before I would be much happier if Audi was upfront and just acknowledged that they made a change and that they weren't currently considering any adjustments to the heat output instead of trying to tell me everything is "normal" when my cold butt says otherwise.

Bruflu

I can only guess this whole issue was caused by someone who sued or threatened to sue, due to "excessive heat", much like the idiots that sue McDonalds when they spill their hot coffee on their laps. My last car was a Lexus, and the top setting for the heated heats was way too hot, so I just didn't use the higher settings; duh!! We can't depend on people to take care of themselves...

ELEVENS

My guess is some so-called parent placed their bare-butted baby on the passenger seat with the heater on high and tingled the tike's tush. The co-called parent got a ambulance-chasing tort lawyer, threatened to sue Audi, Audi settled out of court, the lawyer got 95%, the so-called parent spent the money on crack, and the whole bushel of apples was tainted because of one bad apple. Today's society is like doing a elementary-school fractions assignment. Everything gets reduced to the lowest common denominator.

CrustyNoodle

I'm unable to decipher the VAG-COM adaptation codes that might influence seat heater effectiveness but if someone with the good seat heaters would care to send me a VAG-COM dump I might be able to work it out - anyone?

Here is a bit of interesting reading: http://www.audiforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=166589

Bruflu

So rather than address the issue, they make them ineffective...

HZ60

Interesting read indeed. Could be part of the answer we're looking for. The comment in that thread about leaving the heaters on when nobody is sitting in the seat doesn't seem right. There is supposed to be a pressure sensing switch in the seat to prevent them from coming on if nobody is sitting there. P.105 of the Owner's Manual spells this out. At any rate, they seem to have a little problem in their electrical engineering department. Here's a pretty extreme example from this forum, https://www.audiworld.com/forums/sho....php?t=2802001 The investigators said it started near the passenger side headlight but did not have an exact cause. The owner suspects faulty wiring.
I appreciate your attempt to crack the Vag-Com coding and I hope you are successful.

Dreamaudi

I agree! lol Another legal scenario could include the man going through Fertility treatments! Driving with very heated seats can almost be a form of birth control in itself!