My drivers side seat warmer has gone out this winter and I believe it's time to address it. From some quick tests following the logic of the service manual I've determined it's certainly an open circuit in the back portion of the seat. After some thorough searching I've begun attempting to disassemble the seat but have not found any great guides on disassembling the leather powered seats. I've already managed to break a clip that fastens the rear plastic housing of the seat to the frame of the seat, see the attached image I received from another forum. So I have 2 questions:

If I decide to continue and manage to break more of these clips is there any chance for ordering replacement clips?
I couldn't find any or think of any great search queries on google to determine a part number.

What if I short the seat warmer lines for the upper portion of the seat with some adequately thick wire, wouldn't this allow me to enjoy at least the lower seat warmer?
I'm aware this will increase the power dissipated in the lower portion of the seat but theoretically the thermostat should protect the bottom from damage right?

Also if anyone has any experience or tips disassembling these seats, please let me know before I ruin mine, thanks!

 

Update: got the back off only casualty was one of the clips. probably will just leave it since it was still insanely hard to remove with the clip off and doesn't have any cosmetic impact that I can see, now onto removing the leather...

 

Another update:

I ended up almost entirely disassembling it, it was pretty difficult but I ended up determining via a burn mark/ loose wire that I needed to solder one of the wires back to the super thin heating element contact wire at the end of the seat warmer pad. Now I just need to reassemble it, I've seen zip ties work in place of hog ties when done correctly so I'll be doing that later today. I'll probably add a few photos later to try and help those who want to disassemble their seats in the future.

 

Hi mate.
Did you have any joy identifying these clips? I’m missing some and need replacements...
👍

 

Trying replying already but not sure it posted. Apologies if you see this twice.
Did you manage to identify these clips? I have my seat backs off and have some of these clips missing...

 

Nope, I completed the job without much damage lol.

 

Fair play 👍

 

On the floor of my rx8 I found a piece of plastic.
I googled the part number on it, FS007F181 and this came up:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2004-Mazd...53.m2749.l2649

I still can't find where it belongs. Ic hecked everywhere on the seat, nothing seems missing. My best guess would be that it came off from the seat rails but everything looks ok. I couldn't find that specific piece on the service manual.
Any ideas where to look?

 

It clips over the front end of one of the seat rails. They should each have a similar but different piece.

 

At the front end of the seat rails there are the cycled plastic pieces which are already in place.
I can't locate the one I'm talking about.

 

edit: double post

 

edit: double post

 

Coming back to this, the FS007F181 is the drivers seat right rail cover.
Can somebody tell me the part number of the one on the left because that one is missing too? If there is one of course.