Heated, seated hell from France

I live in Finland.

We get kind of cold winters in this part of the world, and as a function of that, heated seats have come standard in pretty much every car sold around here the last forty years, my Pug being no exception to that, but twenty years of butt had taken its toll on the front seat heaters, of which neither worked.

The coldest couple of days last winter, the heater core in aforementioned Peugeot froze, and as the only then-running vehicle of the household, the hour-long, -40°C drive to various workplaces was rather dreadful to say the least. I promised myself to fix the heated seats before that had a chance to happen again.

Getting the seats out was a dreadful business upon itself, which consumed about an hour and a half per seat. That was only the beginning. The real time muncher lied in these:

The seat covers are attached using what appears to be bits of copper wire, jammed through the covers, cushion and metal grille. Removing them without ruining at least one of the components is a time-consuming process.

Upon breaking into the darned thing (and slicing the heater up), the problem becomes quite obvious.

Fixing it could be as quick as just jamming the cable back in, but I did it properly, with solder, some more wire, heat-shrink tubing and patience.

 

Tuck it back and seal it up!

I took the liberty of improving the cover attachments a bit:

And then I just mounted the seat back and buckled up for the driver's seat. I knew that it would have graver issues than the passenger seat.