heater controls for seats / changing or upgrading to newer

[humbucker]

the heater controls on the leather/heated seats in a cav are a fairly rudimentary design; simply 'on' or 'off'. on later vauxhalls, such as the astra or the omega, the buttons are replaced with control dials which are numbered and you can set them to the desired level of heat. presumably the switch acts as a control device for the thermostat.

i was thinking that an upgrade to the later style of heated seat controls would be a case of plumbing in the new switch/relay/wiring, but wasn't sure if i needed to plug in a new seat thermostat?

a similar example is the omega; the facelift has the regulated heater control whereas the prefacelift has the 'on' and 'off' design. putting seats from a prefacelift into a facelift can result in the seats achieving a billion degrees as the stat control is lost. this is another problem i'm going to have to contend with in addition to wondering about the cav seats, but i guess the principal is the same; how do you go about plugging the newer control system into the older simpler 'on' and 'off' system? it can't be THAT hard can it?!

[Envoy CDX]

I'd say you'd need all the bits from the newer model to retrofit them into the Cav. Nice idea though I like it alot

[Squig]

probably need the heat element too

[Murph]

I like the idea but wouldnt it be easier to just fit a variable resistor into your existing setup?
That way you could turn your element down (but not off) when it gets a little warm if you want to.

Unless of course you want the later ones because they get hotter than the ones you have now?

[humbucker]

a resistor to regulate or replicate the feed to the seats which would then control the temperature would be fine for the cav, but let's say the omega where i have prefacelift seats to put in a facelift, the existing switches relays and wiring for the 'newer' style seats are in place, but i have the old seats that i need to plug them into (complete with heater elements). would it be a case of doing the same again here, adding a new resistor to the exsiting control units? or is there a way of combining the two to reach the desired effect?

[Envoy CDX]

It's case of suck it and see really, worst comes to worst, you could always strip the seats down and swap the heater elements over (shouldn't be a hefty task after rebuilding an engine )

Seriously though, if the relays and controls are external to the seat, you should be laughing, it's only when its built into the seat theres goin to be headaches.