Heated Seats and Steering Wheel Power

How much power do the heated seats and steering wheel take?

So, it turns out that the heated steering wheel uses more than a single seat.

Inspired by the Volt post in the forum, I decided to take my ammeter to by Bolt and measure what was happening with both the heated seats and steering wheel.

Long story short:

One Seat:

• High 35W
• Medium 28W
• Low 20W

Steering Wheel: 47W

The values for the seats are odd. Regardless of the setting, when you turn them on they start at 3.85A and drop pretty quickly to 3.5A until the seat is at the desired temperature.

On high, this then alternates between 3.5A and 1.8A with 50/50 cycle (every 10 seconds), so this averages 2.65A or 35W.

On medium, this alternates between 10 seconds at 3.5A and 6 seconds off, so this averages 2.18A or 28W.

On low this is 8 seconds at 3.5A, 10 seconds off, so this averages 1.56A, or 20W.

With both seats running at full, it was roughly 5A (65W) average, bounced around a lot.

The steering wheel starts at 6A, decreases over time to 3.6A continuous, or 47W.

12V rail voltage was almost exactly 13V at this time.

So why does it take more to heat the steering wheel than the seats? I assume because the seats are effectively insulated, and the steering wheel is not.