2013 MKS front heated and cooled seats are not heating or cooling.

[Car man]

2013 MKS front heated and cooled seats are not heating or cooling. This is a new occurrence and they worked a month ago. I had a problem earlier this year with the sunroof dumping heavy rain into the interior ( drains were plugged) but that's fixed and has not happened again. Not sure if that eventually had/has anything to do with it but thought I'd mention it. The seats functioned properly after that anyway and worked well before. I know the rear seats have a completely different circuit and fuse but I'm unsure of the fronts other then they're controlled by the DCSM. Maybe that quit? Rather expensive to just change out though. Any Ideas out there? I love my MKS and plan to keep it to its death but I want it working properly and look'n good too.

 

[mks4days]

Did you figure this out?

 

[mks4days]

Were you able to solve this issue?

 

[timlewallen]

I'm interested in a resolution as well. Perhaps just cleaning the electrical contacts and doping them with dielectric grease?

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[Car man]

Late entry. I finally took it all apart, cleaned all the connections including the control module. it worked for a while and quit again. Prior to noticing the seats temp controls not working, we smelled something like wire burning but never found anything. Well, a month later, noticed the seat heat and cool stopped working. Began hunting down the issue again, never thought the connections would be a problem since all were cleaned and well silicone greased. Low and behold the mystery burned wire was found at the 12-wire connector and control box. After some searching in the box (yes, I opened it carefully) found the Ground terminal had overheated, melted some of the plug corner and the corner of the box, it also loosened the male terminal of the circuit board. I can deal with the control box but don't know where to find the corroded, down the line, Ground of the harness. Does anyone know where I can find the ground root so I can repair it or do I have to solder in a new ground wire to the old and also bolt it to the chassis? Please help if you can, I know there is a mess of wiring connected to the seats, but I don't know where the ground grounds to repair it. Thank you.

 

[Action]

Does anyone know where I can find the ground root so I can repair it or do I have to solder in a new ground wire to the old and also bolt it to the chassis? Please help if you can, I know there is a mess of wiring connected to the seats, but I don't know where the ground grounds to repair it. Thank you.

I think if anyone has this information and is a member of this site and replies, consider yourself lucky enough to buy a lotto ticket too! You should be a winner.

And it should be someone that has a 2013 to the end of production since the earlier ones may be different as they were before the update.

Otherwise you will be ahead of the game by buying a wiring diagram. It will list connectors and grounds and locations of all of that.

Action

 

[Car man]

Already have a "Large Book" of wiring diagrams for the 2013 MKS, which has the Ground point as #G302, unfortunately, the book nor the service manual diagrams note the insertion point on the chassis. I just want to know where that is so I can fix it because other systems also depend on that connection point. If anyone knows where #G302 grounding point is located, I would appreciate the assistance.
Thanks

 

[Car man]

I'm interested in a resolution as well. Perhaps just cleaning the electrical contacts and doping them with dielectric grease?

As you noted, cleaning and dielectric (silicone) grease did the job for quite a while but I have another issue that has raised its ugly head, Grounds! Now what? In search of answers.

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[Rongold]

According to the 2013 MKS wiring diagram book, G302 is on page 151-18 and looks to be located about 6-8 inches up from the floor on the driver's "A" pillar.

RON

 

[Action]

I was going to say the diagram doe s give location.

Thanks RON

Action

 

[kdschlosser]

This is a known problem with ALL Ford/Lincoln Heated seats. This problem has been going on now for the better part of 20 years. The cause of the problem is NOT anywhere else in the vehicle except the clip. With DC power current flows up both the power and also the ground circuits. The heated seats are made using a heating element of sorts, typically nichrome wire. It works much in the same way as an electric stove does. Power and ground are supplied to a wire and that wire has a specific amount of resistance to it and that causes the wire to get hot. One of the wonderful things about this type of a design is that temperature will effect the resistance of the wire as will age. as the resistance changes so does the amount of current that is being drawn. The issue is the clip that plugs into the module. The pins are not rated to handle the amount of current that is being drawn. This causes the connection to get hot and the plastic to melt. If you want to fix it permanently you will need to open up the module and solder down to the board directly with wire that is large enough to handle the current draw. have the wire come out of the module and make the connection wire to wire. You only need to do this for the large pin connections in the clip that is melted.

The reason why Ford has not fixed this issue is because the failures most often occur outside of the factory warranty period. So if the problem doesn't have to get repaired on their dime there is no motivation for them to fix it. It is also something that allows they dealers to get paid and they make money from the parts sales. If you have ever had the back window sun shade fail and you spent the time to open up the gear box assembly you would see that every single gear in the box is metal except for one. There is one plastic gear right in the middle of it. Wanna know what happens when you run a plastic gear against a metal gear? It's going to fail 100% of the time. It is designed to fail and oddly enough the gearbox is built into the motor assembly and it is the ONLY motor you cannot buy all by itself. You have to buy the entire sunshade at a crazy price of something like 500 bucks... I can buy the sunroof motor, window motor, power seat motors all by their lonesome. they cost about 60 to 100 bucks. not the sunshade tho. There is no reason why they would put a plastic gear inside that gearbox other than to intentionally have it fail. Planned obsolescence. It's the same thing with the heated seat clip melting.

 

[Serhii]

Hi Avery one. Can you give me please wire diagram for dcsm ? Thank you.

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