How much draw using heated seats?

[jkbrand]

I was hoping to use my Kill-a-Watt to monitor the draw of heated seats, but it appears the seat warmers can be enabled only with the car being on (car icon showing in dash). Seems Ford (legitimately) inhibits engaging the car icon while the car is on the charger.

Has anyone measured how much energy the seats use when being heated??? If so, how?

 

[hybridbear]

Minimal. I have tested in the Fusion Hybrid & Energi by watching the DCDC converter when turning the seats on & off. The seats use less electricity than is used just to run the HVAC fan without any heat or AC. Well under 100 Watts per seat. Higher settings use more electricity.

 

[jkbrand]

If the draw is that minimal, why would Ford not enable the seat heaters when an owner initiates a remote start? In Colorado's climate, a 10-minute warm-up interval would seem far less efficient in heating the cab's air than a couple of minutes of seat warming--and it would appear (it) consumes more energy in trying to preheat the car than to warm the seats.

I must be missing something because this just doesn't seem to make sense. :?:

 

[WattsUp]

If the draw is that minimal, why would Ford not enable the seat heaters when an owner initiates a remote start?

The seat heaters are designed to dissipate heat into a big bag of mostly water (aka, human body) sitting in the seat. Without that "heat sink" in place, the heaters might eventually damage the seating material if routinely used with the seat empty.

I'm pretty sure the passenger seat won't heat when nobody is sitting in it (even if the car is turned on and passenger seat heat dial is turned up). Presumably it uses the same sensor that disables the airbag when nobody (or somebody too light, like a small child) is in the seat.

 

[hybridbear]

If the draw is that minimal, why would Ford not enable the seat heaters when an owner initiates a remote start? In Colorado's climate, a 10-minute warm-up interval would seem far less efficient in heating the cab's air than a couple of minutes of seat warming--and it would appear (it) consumes more energy in trying to preheat the car than to warm the seats.

I must be missing something because this just doesn't seem to make sense. :?:

Other vehicles have the heated seats built into the remote start (such as the Fusion). The Focus lacks this functionality. Since the Focus lacks it in the gas version, the EV version also lacks this feature. All Fusions (gas, hybrid & Energi) will heat the seats during a remote start event if that feature is turned on.

 

[Rwbill]

This is fairly easy to establish. The draw for the electric seat heaters is minimal compared to the heater and defroster, and until winter temps drop into the 30s and below this is my preferred way to offset the chill. The seat heaters will draw 200-300 Whr compared to the heater which can begin at over 5000 Whr.

You can set up your My View in the left side display to show the draw from this and other accessories in real time. This is much easier than the steps below make it sound!

From DISPLAY MODE, right arrow.


Toggle UP or DOWN until you find MY VIEW, then right arrow.



From OPTIONS, select CHANGE MY VIEW ( OK or right arrow )



You have a left section and right section to customize.
In the left section, using the Selector on the left side of the steering wheel, toggle UP or DOWN through seven display choices. They are TRIP1, TRIP2, ENERGY HISTORY, ENERGY COACH, BUDGET TEXT ONLY, RANGE VIEW, and ACCESSORY POWER. Select ACCESSORY POWER.



While there, push the right arrow to set up the right section. You have six choices, some of the same as the left section. Mine is set to BUDGET + AVG.



Toggle all the way left to DISPLAY MODE. Push the right arrow, and push up or down through the five choices until you find MY VIEW. You will now see in the left section two live horizontal graphs, CLIMATE, and OTHER. The seat warmers will appear at OTHER, and will only push the bar to the right 200-400 WattHrs. Let me see if I remember how to insert pictures.

 

[Rwbill]

trying links to photobucket.

 

[WattsUp]

I hope that posted OK.

No, sorry. The problem is your "image URLs" don't actually refer to image files. Instead, they refer to whole web pages (enter one into a browser to see). This is why the tag cannot display them. They are not image URLs. They are web page URLs.

To use the [img] tag, you need a URL that refers [i]directly[/i] to a JPEG file or PNG file (possibly other types, but JPEG and PNG should definitely work).

Either find URLs that refer directly to your images hosted at Flickr, or simply post regular URLs (either plain or in using a [url] tag) to your web pages at Flickr.

 

[Rwbill]

Well that's weird. I reduced the size of all of the photos in Photobucket to the same 600 x 450, yet on my screen all the pictures display huge except for the last one, which is the size I was hoping all would be. I'll try to play around and get them all reduced to the same size as the last one, which is inexplicable as in photobucket they were all saved to the same size. No clue why they are displaying different sizes.

At any rate, for anyone who has been trying to see the effects of different accessories on the battery usage this should help.

For this specific question, the seat warmers are a very efficient way to warm up compared to the heater and defroster, pulling 200-400 Whr compared to 5000+ Whr.