I'm buying some seat heaters from a friend who bought them for his Miata and never installed them. I'm wondering if anyone has installed seat heaters in their seats themselves, or if anyone knows where I can find instructions on how to do this?

I read on here that the RX-8 of any trim level is already wired for seat heaters. Can anyone speak to the validity of that?

Thanks to anyone that can give me some advice!

 

I think that is correct about the wiring. Do you have cloth or leather seats? Also, you might need the correct trim piece for where the switches go if you want a stock look.

 

I have cloth seats. I'm not too worried about the trim plate, as I don't really like how those switches are positioned as it is. I'm still figuring that out. Have you taken apart the seats at all?

 

I bought a seat heater system for my wife's Miata with cloth seats. to anyone else interested, I purchased the heater system from Duetto Motors although I think there are Miata aftermarket vendors that stock them. Other heaters are made by Katzkin (see www.katzkin.com). The Duetto version is very well made , you don't need any wiring , everything that you need including switches comes with the set. There are three versions one with switch on and off, one is a low & high, the last is a low,med, high heat. Switches would match well inside the 8. I spent about $150 for the on-off system. which works just fine for us. The 8 apparently has the heater wiring in but you will have to install a fuse in the fuse box.

I wired the switches in the console ran wiring under the carpet to the seats. But I took the seats out and had the heaters installed at a good auto upholstery shop because that was just too much for me to attempt. I think that the 8 seats would be a chore to do yourself as well. The shop I went to charged $150 per seat as they had to remove and reinstall the seat and the seat back covers. So my out of pocket costs were about $450 to install. My wife was not crazy about the cost until she started using the heaters in the fall and early spring when she would usually have the top up. Now she loves them...now whenever her a$$ is warm...she thinks of me!

 

Wow that is a lot of money for seat heaters man! I'm thinking I may risk messing up my seats and just install the heaters I got myself. Hey- if I mess them up real bad, that's an excuse to upgrade to leather

 

Lol, yeah but the leather will cost you even more! The problem with the seat heaters is that the ones I had actually stick to the seat cushions (a peel off backing). If you could just open part of the seat and slide them in it would be easier. But with the Miata, there were all sorts of hog rings and seams that tuck under. The upholstery shop charged $75 per section (2 seats, 2 seat backs), so it was $300 to put them into the seats. On the other hand, I'm sure that I would have royally screwed them up and would have taken days and days of my time for a poor result. So time is money, eh? Good luck, however, the heaters are really nice to have.