Hi guys. I have a 2010 Maxima SV Premium. The drivers seat heater/air con. intermittently quits working. If I turn the car off then back on, it starts working again.

Has anyone else had or heard of this problem.

I know it is under warranty, but intermittent problems are hard to find and I don't want my car sitting at the dealer for a couple weeks while everyone in the shop takes turns driving it.

Thanks

 

From my experience it works in waves - gets hot, cools a bit, gets got again. Once it quits working do you feel no heat at all?

 

Mine does the same.

 

A couple of us have had problems with this with our 09s (if you mean the light goes out on the rotary control and you have to turn the car off and then back on to get it to work again?)
It took me quite a few trips to the dealer to get it repaired and about a year...they eventually had to replace the entire seatback (there are some sensors/thermistors that report back what they think the temp is.) Mine were sometimes reporting over 1000 F and of course the system shuts down to protect you from frying.

The downside, until the problem gets "reproducable" you may have to make a few trips (it will eventually get to the point where the light won't stay on more than 30 secs no matter what) and as such, the techs will have an issue finding the problem.

The last time the techs had finally gotten a diagnostic computer update that would let them diagnose better and of course that let them determine the seat back was toast. Before that, it was volt/ohm meters and keeping it for a few days to see if they could make it fail.

Hopefully, your techs will have the computer update that will allow them to troubleshoot and identify the issue quickly.

Lots of Luck
Lt

 

Thanks Lt.
"(if you mean the light goes out on the rotary control and you have to turn the car off and then back on to get it to work again?)".
That is exacty it. If it just quit working it would be easy to find. This intermittent $hit is pissing me off! This is the third intermittent problem I have had with this car.

 

I see you are in Fl! I know the Nissan Guys in Melbourne know how to diagnose it correctly now and are top notch...you may want to jump on 95 and let them have a go! They've been great to me and I didn't even buy my Max there...but I will from now on!

 

That's a little far. I'm in the panhandle across the bay from Destin.

 

Just a little stretch of the legs for your Max!

 

Wow mines in for the same prob right now I hope they find it, also in for a noise coming from the rear passenger side when you go over a speed bump. I think its suspension related but they said its not, and they know best and said they found it and its in the head liner. I have a feeling this is going to take awhile

 

They will probably start out with replacing a controller...this will make it better for a while but in a few weeks/months it will start acting up again....they may replace it again and once more it will work for a few weeks/months..until they can get the sensors replaced (you have to replace the entire seat back as the sensor/thermistors aren't serviceable) and that gets expensive.

 

Does the Cold package give you a cold seat also?

 

Only if it is cold outside!! Seriously though, it is the Premium package that has the climate controlled seat. The cold package does include heated seats though.

 

Just give up on the seats n get a hot gf to warm you over during those freezing unforgiving winters.
Your neighbors will envy you more than any luxury brand vehicle.

 

And then tell your bride about GF to get downright frosty in the summer???LMAO...no thanks...I'll stick with the technology!!

 

Oh come on honey! I had to get a Hot girlfriend. The damm seat heater quit woking.

 

I'll get the couch, bandages and Mercurochrome ready!

 

My max is having the same intermittent issue with the heated seats.....Annoying! It appears to happen much more frequently when my car is sitting outside and the temps are below freezing. This is when I really want it.

Otherwise it works pretty much every other day when pulling out of my garage where it wasn't below freezing. A lot of help that is!

 

I have the same exact problem, when it is below 30 degree's it seems to happen more than when it is warm out or above 32. However, I have taken it in several times and the dealership gave me their classic line "well the seat has to be doing it for us to fix it". So after the run around it happen again during the work week so I took it in right after work. Once again they gave me the run around "Ok, we see the problem however it might be several different things so we need it for awhile to figure it out" Once again, they couldn't do it that day however scheduled another time to come in. Guess what? I took it in on the scheduled date then they said their tech guy was out for the holidays and wouldn't be back to the first of the year. B.S. right? Anyways, I have an appointment with them and hopefully we can get this fixed. LT leary anyway i can get a fax of your service records so I can show them... I am having the exact same problems you are having. Shoot me an e-mail please I would love to get any info from you to show them. Thanks! E-mail is micromoves@yahoo.com

 

If I had them I would...I don't save things I don't pay for but next time I am the service center...should be in a month or so as I have to get my cvt fluid changed I will ask. I still don't have an effective solution...the longest I've been able to have my seat work is about 6 months...and that is after they replaced the seat back. As I am now out of warranty, I doubt I will pay the 1500 to 2000 for a new seat...but will see...ya never know when I will get another "mission."

 

Wow, so you are telling me they didn't fix it or it only worked for 6 months? I'm at 27,000 so I would hate for this problem to happen again. It is so annoying when your seat doesn't heat up when its cold. If I were you I would take it back in since this was already a problem when in was under warranty and it truely did not fix it! Let me know how it turns out and I'll let you know what they did to mine. Thanks for your help!

 

Brand new '11 w/ same problem. At least I'm not imagining it.

 

This sucks I don't have time to do a runaround with the dealership on this..... Nissan needs figure this one out. What good is a heated seat that won't work when its cold out!?!

 

I believe the heated and cooled seats work as follows, you put it on high to quickly get the seat really hot. If you leave it on high, it has a sensor that detects the temp of seat and it shuts off periodically so that it does not overheat. What I think your suppose to do is, once the seat gets really hot and nice for you, your suppose to switch it to low which keeps a low amount of heat on the seat all the time. Same most likely works for the cool feature as well.

 

In mine, it doesn't matter whether it is set low/med/high. It will shut off within 20-30 seconds and not come back on until the car is restarted. And it only happens when it its really cold, below freezing. It's definitely a sensor issue, just very random.

 

Same here

 

FYI, all those suffering the same issue: I stopped in to my dealer today with my brand new, 2011 SV Premium with climate controlled seats and was able to replicate the problem for them. They were clueless, as I'm sure all your dealer service managers were, but at least they acknowledged the problem so we are taking steps to raise the ground swell that this is a real issue that needs corporate attention.

 

Mine in the stealership now and it has been a week with no word except they ordered a new blower and heating element. The service adviser told me nissan techs. told them to start there and see what happens. Sounds to me like they have no clue why it doesn't work like it should. Smarty666, just wanted you to know when its cold outside it doesnt matter really where you set it or turn it down too. Basically, it never gets warm because it usually shuts off in 20-30 seconds after operation. One question for you guys do you have to drive it in order for it to happen? If i let mine just sit it doesnt seem to happen and heats up correctly is this the same for the rest of you? Funny thing is my Nissan service manager tried to tell me it was how the seat was positioned and maybe how I sat in it...haha. So basically, I told him is there anything from nissan that stated where the seat should be position and how I needed to sit in it. Of course he said no, Wow, crazy! Really, they don't have a clue so they just come up with anything even if its over the top. I'll keep you guys updated on my car as soon as I get it back and I'll let you know what they did and if it even helped.

 

Good Luck Guys. I've stopped fighting this battle..was taking too much of my time.

 

I've given up also after 6 or 7 trips to the dealer.

 

Exactly what mine is doing, a 2011 SV-Premium and its happened since day one... I took a video of it happening and showed the dealer. I am bringing mine in on monday. I will keep all of you in the loop on whats happening.

 

I'm learning to turn it off before I get out of the car, then waiting a couple of minutes before turning it on LOW the next time and it seems to hold. After a couple of minutes I can turn it up in increments all the way to high and it holds...Nutty stuff. Good luck at the dealer Jimm. You should bring a print out of this thread with you.

 

Add one more victim to the list. Seems like the classic 'reboot' of the car is the only thing that helps.

 

I have an 11 with 2,000 miles on it and it does it too. The light goes out, and will come back on if i shut the car off. Today I turned the setting from hot down to the lowest heat setting and it was blowing cold air even though the ventilate function wasn't on.

 

Ok guys here is an update!!

So I brought it in this past Monday and guess what... of course they said there was no issue found with the seat. I explained it happens to me EVERY single day and they must keep trying to fix it... Three days go by and they call me asking if I can come down to prove it because I must be doing something. So with the idea of proving them wrong I took a day off of work and took the tech for a ride with me around the neighborhood. GUESS WHAT!! the driver seat didnt work. Stumped as to how he couldnt get it to do that he called some master tech program nissan has and connected my car to a computer that they can access remotely. In about an hour they found out that the seat bottom and back need to be replaced. HA HA! a win for us guys. But as the gods would have it the parts are obviously on back order... SO what I will do for the bennefit of the boards and all current and future 7th gen owners I will post a link to the service paperwork once I get my car back. This is an obvious issue that has now affected 3 model years of a "flagship" car.

Until then good luck everyone else.

 

Thanks for the update Jimm. If you would please post or send me by PM the name of your dealer.

 

Nissan called and had me pick up the car because the parts were on WAAAAAY back order... Ill have to bring it back in when the parts become available... will keep you all posted.


Oh and mods could we possibly join the two cold seat threads together?

 

My Max 2011 Prem has had the issue from day one. The car has been with the dealer 4x. They now have changed all controllers and service said they took back of seat off to trim adjust blah blah blah. So far the light has stayed on and seats are mildly warm. No need to for med or low at this point, they are all the same. Lets see if this fix holds.

 

Wow! I'm glad to find I'm not going crazy as my dealer thinks I am...I'm goign to print this thread and show it to him as proof and maybe they can get it right...finally. Thanks to all who posted...a great help!

 

Part 1
My seat heater seemed to work ok. I say just ok because the base never seemed to get nearly as hot as the seat back. Often times I would have to turn the heater off because the seat back was so hot and the base would hardly be warm. I asked the dealer about it and the explanation made sense even though it points to poor design. I was told that the back has a full size heating element that heats up quickly. The base, according to the dealer, used duct work to provide the heat and cooling. I heve found, silly as it may sound, that by figiting around in the seat a bit, that it does seem warmer. I wonder if this just my fat *** blocking the heated air from coming through the holes. Also I doubt that there is any heat or cool coming from the solid leather surface of the extendable thigh support section that makes up the front third of the seat base. Probably none from the solid surface side bolsters as well which doesn't leave much area to heat.

Part 2
My dealer replaced the entire lower undercarriage of my drivers seat to fix the rocking motion that I was getting. Good news is that seems to have fixed that problem. After doing this, I started noticing erratic behavior from the seat heater light. It would always come on when I started the car but then would kick off anywhere from 1 minute to 5 minutes later. This was happening during a particularly cold spell with temps in the single digits. I would always leave the switch (rotary **** as I have the heat/cool version) in the on position. After reading some threads I started turning it off when I parked. I started turning it to low for a few minutes and then to high and that seemed to help. After a few days of doing this, I accidentally left it on high when I parked. The next morning I started up with it on high and it has worked fine ever since. Perhaps I unknowingly performed a reboot or recalibration. Who knows. I'm just happy it's working now. Just wish the base got hotter.

 

What do you know..... another heated seat issue thread. I missed this one due to the title being cold seat. That makes about a dozen of them. Come on guys you are all just imagining this...... either the systems work as designed or it's soooooo complicated that no one at Nissan can figure this out in the five years that it has been occurring. LOL.