WATERCARBON X18203 Universal Seat Heater Kit Car warmer

These are probably wonderful pads for most vehicle seats. That said, it would appear as though there is a fundamental misunderstanding between the terms Universal and Generic. They market this item as Universal - Can Be Installed In Any Vehicle. I suppose if you are not concerned where exactly they are installed, this is true and the individual that used his as a pizza bag warmer is a genius. That said, they do not fit seats universally and claim they have no way of knowing. The problem with that perspective is they offer a direct OEM replacement pad with a completely different geometry, so they kind of already know. I do not recommend pointing this out to them, especially to Chris in their tech department; he just hangs up on you. Additional conversations have confirmed a misunderstanding regarding the term universal within the tech department at Dorman.

My problem isn't keeping my rear end warm during the winter as I live on the border with Mexico and itdoesn't get that cold here to me. But what does get cold here is my PIZZA. I live out on a ranch and it isa 15 mile ride into town to pick up a pizza. By the time I get back to the ranch the pizza is cold. I had to dosomething to take care of this problem. Enter Universal Seat Heater. I bought a 18 inch pizza bag on Amazonand installed these heat pads inside the bag. Hook up a 15 amp cigarette lighter plug to the heat pads and Inow have hot pizza when I get back to the ranch. Temperature in the bag gets up to 138-140 degreesinside. Pads come with a 10 amp fuse. Be careful when pulling the orange vinyl off of the edges as you canalso pull up the sticky side that will stick to your pizza bag. Any way I just had to share this with every one.

I am extremely "handy". I worked as a machinist and an electrician and finally a research engineer for 40 years. Still going strong. I do carpentry and plumbing too. I think it is important to understand a customer's capabilities on these self-install products. You can compare your capabilities to mine and my comments.I have to say, this was a challenge, for odd reasons, but I successfully installed these in a 2016 Mazda CX5,---here I can offer a few tipsFind and watch every YouTube video on installing seat heaters you can. You will thank me for this. Each video shows a different seat type or issue you will need to know about. They are INVALUABLE- Do not skip this!Disconnect the battery!!!!!!!Many seats have side airbags now, if you set one off when your head is nearby, it could kill you. This is no joke!The main connector for the seat sensors and airbags would not come unplugged after the seat was unbolted, so I HAD to install these without removing the seat from the car- I could move the seat around, the power cable was long enough to stand it up on its front edge with the seat-back over the steering wheel to get underneath it. As it turns out I had to re-connect the battery about 20 times to operate the seat mechanism- Grrrr..This seat is 100% electric> SO, IF I had removed it from the car, I would have been stuck. You HAVE TO raise and lower the seat-back multiple times to thread the seat fabric through the gap between the seat and back rest.If you have installed or repaired upholstery in the past, you know what hog rings are. I had never seen them before. These formed metal rings hold the plastic strips bonded to the back of the seat fabric, in the slots in the foam seats. There are skinny metal bars embedded in the seats for this. These hog rings must be removed to install the heating pads, then reinstalled carefully, in the slot in the pad and all around it. The tool they provide and the "replacement hog rings" are absolute cr@p. Throw them out when you open the package. The tie-wraps provided are junk too.Buy or beg around 40 industrial quality 6-8" tie wraps from an engineer friend. You don't need the length but do need the width of a longer ones for long-term strength. I had some with a tiny metal catch in them- insanely strong.. Use these in place of the hog rings you remove, pull them tight and cut them off short, and they work GREAT. Use some to tie the wires too. I ran the cable under the gap under the seat track, under and through the skirt on the center console and up under the dash. Piece of cake. BUY a fuse tap for the type fuses you have, and use a meter to find a group of fuses that power off with the key or you will kill the battery if you leave the heater on. These pads use around 7 amps on hi, so it won't take long to drain a good battery with the engine off.The upholstery work was the toughest part by far. Take pictures if you have never done this before, There are some clever (bizarre) tricks they use to clip fabric in place. You will want to remember these. I struggled with closing the back of the seat a bit because I didn't take THAT photo. The job is done, the heaters work great and the power switch is in the dash. Came out very clean, even the creases in the seats are sharp (I replaced ALL the hog rings).I am very satisfied with the results, but it did take nearly all day to do- for an upholstery newbie. Very satisfied.UPDATE-its oct 2021, and the seat heaters STILL WORK !

These pads are great! Installed them in my girlfriends car(2014 Mazda CX-5) without too much trouble. Included instructions are fairly straightforward, but it definitely helps to lookup specifics for your make and model as far as removing the upholstery. These seats get WAY hotter than the factory installed ones in my '17 Outback, almost to the point of being too hot. They heat up quick, too. The installation process was fairly smooth, once you know what you're doing you could knock out two seats in an afternoon.Now for the not as great: the included hog ring pliers suck, I picked up a cheap one from Harbor Freight that worked a lot better. The hog rings themselves were also junk, several didn't latch on properly and because of this I didn't have enough to fully reinstall the upholstery(I stole some from the second kit to make do). Ordered a 100 pack of higher quality rings and it made life MUCH easier on the second seat.As others have said the included fuse taps are for the old school large size fuses, so if you have a remotely modern vehicle you'll need to splice in a mini or micro fuse tap, not a big deal but something to be aware of. The opening in the middle of the pad for reattaching the seat upholster is also not big enough by a long shot. Hard to fault them since they have to accomodate so many vehicle sizes, but you'll have to cut either the heating pad or the upholstery attachments to make it work. Switches also use a 20mm hole to install, which is kind of a rare size. A 3/4" hole saw will work but it's a tight fit.All in all I'd definitely use these again, just have to keep in mind the negatives so you're not running to the store or frantically ordering parts to finish the job like I did!