charlesw325

My 18 feels just fine to me , not as hot compared to my F15 X5 . the X5 is probably too hot so that I have to turn it off after a few minutes.

hayde_bre

Hey, you drove with X5 with no indicator at all, or a light that you had to crane your neck to check if it was on or not... I hated that thing, there was no message on dash or iDrive that heated steering was on, it had a physical light at the side toward bottom of steering column. Funny thing is that this was sort of exclusive to X5, "no message or indicator on dash", other lines and older models had a brief message on dash, for some reason x5 go the crippled one, must have saved X5 coders few lines of code...

People said "why do you need indicator, you'll know it's on when it gets hot" but the problem was it used to take few minutes for it to get hot, and by the time you realized it wasn't on, it was hassle to wait for it to heat up.

X5 had hot spots, and they were a lot hotter than Q7s steering wheel, but it was uneven, I didn't really like it. When you moved your hand from one spot to another, it would feel really weird, and lose the super hotness once you touch it.

While I wish it was hotter, there is no way I would adjust something like this using OBD11. It can go wrong very easily.

BigKutta

I had a X1 loaner a few weeks ago, brand new car 2019....and it had the switch for the heated wheel on the steering column where it couldn't be seen, and there was no indicator it was on. So weird. I experienced exactly what you said

mi_sat

What dealer EVER stands behind a product under warranty. If I hear one more time "it's a normal characteristic of the vehicle," I'm going to come out shooting.

Force-1

My first Q7 had the switch on the back of a steering wheel spoke, and no light. If you didn't read the manual you would never know where the switch was.

Doc H

This. I love that the Q7 seems to heat, gradually, to just the correct temperature whether you start out warm, cold or really cold. The X5 was "off" or "on," all ahead full. I don't need my steering wheel to heat the car.

RickObe

The feel of heat can be subjective. I think I'd get an inexpensive probe thermometer and tape it to the steering wheel with ace bandage or rescue tape. Put it in a location that is supposed to get warm, like the 4-5 o'clock position. Set up a camera that shows the thermometer and the dash at the same time (so you can see the "on" indication pop up on the dash). Then take a video that proves it's not warming up. Even better, do the same on another Q7 that works properly. That will take the subjectivity out of the equation.

ocluzie

rccoleman

An IR thermometer might be easier (like ). Overall, I love my heated steering wheel and haven't had an issue with the heat level either before or after my software update from 1178->1316. The only inconsistency is that the bulges at 10 and 2 don't get as warm as the rest of the wheel.

Corgiman