I live in Astana, Kazakhstan where the temperature stays at -15 to -22 for most of January and February. When the car’s been outside all day while I’m at work the heated seats warm up way before I do or the engine does. Without them I’d be shaking too much to drive. Only in those conditions can a man admit that heated seats are useful.
It goes much deeper.
Take note that when a group of men and women are sharing a communal heat source such as a campfire; men tend to warm their frontsides, women will warm their backsides. This does not answer the question but confirms the observation on another level.
I would NOT buy a vehicle without heated seats. I love them. Little old lady w/a bad back.
I love the heated seats in my 2000 Acura RL. I live in Wilmington, NC and we have had an extremely cold winter this year. I use the seat instead of the climate control in the car.
I agree with the other lady who said it’s because we have bigger butts than men (although I have seen evidence to refute this fact). I WISH my car had heated seats, because I keep my thermostat set at 70-74 depending on how cold it is, and my husband will turn it down to 65-66 when he is driving. I keep a blanket in the car and wrap up as if we were in a dogsled. The heated seat would help. Do they make them aftermarket for a 2007 Prius?
I think it’s all about Biology. Doesn’t heat destroy sperm cells?
Heated seats sound good, and on a cold morning they feel good for the first couple of minutes - but soon they get so hot (on 3 different cars so far) that I have to turn it off. My girlfriend on the other hand would never consider a car without them. She turns then on the minute she gets in the car. Now on the other hand I LOVE the cooled seats in my Lincoln. When I get in the car on a hot summer day with shorts on, the cooled seats are a lifesaver (or at least a legsaver)
I live in Iowa where winters are cold, I like the heated seats because they warm before the heater puts out warm air. I think it helps with back pain on long drives too.
A male vote for seat heaters,
Larry Fitzpatrick
Iowa City Iowa
I had seat heaters and electrically inflatable lumbar supports added to my 2004 Prius, by a good upholstery shop. On the driver’s side, the seat bottom and seat back heaters are independently switchable. The passenger’s side has only a back heater because the shop did not want to risk messing up the occupancy detector that controls the air bag.
I often use the back heater, because it relaxes my muscles when they are tense — I sometimes do this even on warm days when I have the A/C on. In CA it is rarely cold enough to warrant using the bottom heater, though I have done so on occasion. Usually it makes me less comfortable…
I’d put up with the bottom heater if that were the only way to heat my back.
In any event, I highly recommend visiting a good shop if you are not comfortable when driving.
It is differances in clothing… My husband and I live in Napa Valley so we have frosty mornings half of the year. Our cars are not garaged because the winemaking opertaions has taken over the garage. Now my husband does not care for bum warmers and I cannot live without them. For him, he who wears jeans and chinos, complains that by the time he feels the bum warmer through his denim its far too warm. On my side, I wear silk and linen (thin clothing) to work and that cold leather gives a chill for the rest of the day.
They’re great to have in a convertible - when the weather is cool, you can have the top down and still be toasty. Also, I had a gal pal that, when she had cramps, would call me up to take her for a drive - apparently the “high” setting on the seats in my Benz, which was hot enough to fry my backside, was just the ticket to making her feel much better.
Which, yes, was a big disadvantage for me - gee, I get to spend time with you when you’re at your most cranky, lucky me. But hey, we do what we can for our friends, and after all, she put up with me the other 27 days of the month.
Gee, I just thought that was because the women didn’t want to look at us…
I have a bad back, so heated seats in the winter are a Godsend.
My Jetta is 11 years old and for my next car heated seats are a must. I don’t consider it a luxury but a very useful feature. I live in NC so our winters are mild but I have poor ciruclation so I love that I can tuck one hand under my leg and heat it up quickly.
Top two reasons I love heated seats:
- Relief for lower back pain when I have PMS
- Turning the passenger seat on in the middle of summer and waiting to hear my friend say “holy hell my ass is on fire” as I crack up and turn it off.
I’m a woman and I like heated seats, but don’t really like the heated tuchus part. In fact, I have to put a towel on the seat because it gets too hot. What I LOVE tho is the heated back of the seat! I drive 23k+/yr and I’ve even been known to spend some extra time driving when my back bothers me because the heated back of my seat feels to good.
You’re leaving out the age question! I’m 55, I have a bad back and sciatica. My Venza’s butt warmer also includes the lumbar region in the seat back, and on our first long trip I discovered that turning on the heat gives me several hundred miles’ worth of pain relief! I didn’t want them before I bought the car, now I can’t see how I’d do without them.
I’m a guy and I can say I don’t really care about having “warm” seats, BUT I really hate cold seats.
So if the seats are cloth, I don’t care because they don’t feel that cold.
If the seats are leather, I really like heated seats but just to warm the seats up above subarctic temperatures.
FWIW I do know a lot of friends (also male) who love heated seats though it could be because we’re all in college and heated seats usually mean they’re riding in a nicer car.
Living in a cold state where the engine, and hence the heater core, can take between 5 and 10 minutes to warm up… heated seats, run on the battery, give a little comfort as you head out, trying not to breath and frost up the inside of the vehicle and clutching the steering wheel through the thick winter gloves. We hit -20 this winter and heated seats are a little sunshine on a cloudy day (okay wintry day).
I think you are missing an important safety issue… When I and some of my siblings were teenagers, my father bought a car with heated seats. During the winter, we all enjoyed them. During the summer, we quickly discovered that you can, under the guise of fiddling with the radio or adjusting the air conditioning, switch on the OTHER person’s seat heater without them realizing, and then get to watch them start sweating profusely until they figure out what’s happened. Thanks to our remarkable level of maturity, we played this prank so many times that it devolved into arm wrestling matches any time someone reached towards the center console. I’m not sure that fighting over heating controls while driving is quite as dangerous as texting behind the wheel, but still, parents of teens and partners of perpetually immature adults should think twice before getting a vehicle with heated seats.
I had an '85 Mustang convertible with vinyl seats. In the summer it could melt your legs in the winter the cold could cut through dockers and jeans faster than you could turn the radio on. In the nations capitol area we occasionally get a few weeks of 20 degree weather. In the winter I took to sitting on beach towels and wearing a wool trench coat to protect my legs, and future children from cryo-stasis. In my travels to Scandinavia I first encountered heated seats and wished to have them. However, later on, one of my friends who had heated seats accidentally turned on his passengers heated seat in middle of the summer and despite the air conditioner running full blast the vehicle began to smell like sweating, roasting posterior. Yeeeech! Manufactures should come up with a cooled seat for the summer. Oh what a luxury that would be.