2009 Audi A4 Avant: Six Settings to Toast Your Buns

yeah, 51 is hardly grounds for heated seat use. Maybe 40 or below.

How can someone's butt detect six different heat settings? Is it because #6 is so hot you end up making a rump roast, or...?

The A4 is a nice car but is it ever going away? What more to talk about? There is nothing interesting left to talk about.

Pffft... who is this Mr. Karl Brauer? I trust seat heater reviews from Mrs. DeRosa only. Amateur.

If you're going to make more than three settings, why not just give an adjustable dial?

When I saw the title of this post I figured Donna wrote it. Karl, you need a trip to the East Coast to reset your cold meter!

I consider 51 degrees to be bun-warmer weather, at least with leather seats and when not coming into the car from a garaged setting. And it was 24 here this morning.

My 2008 (and I believe it started in 2005) Legacy GT has 4 different settings on a dial for driver and passenger. I DO often ramp it up or down....the highest setting feels phenomenal for about 15 minutes as your butt and back muscles melt into the hot leathery goodness, then it starts to get too hot.

All that being said, i think a lo-medium-high is all that I would ever want or use.

Joe

P.s. I haven't tried out Audi's , but the finest seat heaters I've ever experienced were in a 2002 Jetta Wolfsburg edition (cloth seats). They were hot within, I think, 90 seconds tops and just seemed to have the best radiant heat I'd ever felt through the seats. I wonder if that carries into Audi too.

Hmm, it was about 25 degrees outside yesterday, but I never thought to turn on the seat heater. I also have a Subaru ('05 Outback) with 4 heat settings. Maybe, as Joe says, you need them more with leather. I hope never to buy a car with leather.

My biggest gripe aout seat heaters (besides the fact that when I use them it feels like I peed my pants), is that some cars come with them, but don't even have power seats-- not even as an option.

6 settings is called German Overkill, period. It makes no sense and the differences between the settings cant even be noticed by someone wearing a coat and jeans. There is no reason for more than 3 settings. I believe VW models also have 5 or 6 settings. Maybe the next S class will have 10 settings.

You do need seat heaters more with leather becuase it transfers temperature more rapidly than cloth which makes the coldness more noticeable when you get into a car. You dont need them when its in the 50s however. That's not cold, not even close.

I'd rather have heated seats than not, but I don't really miss them in my cars that have cloth seats. I do appreciate the heated seats -and steering wheel- in my wife's X3 truck, as it is equipped with leather seats.

I like heated seats myself. I will say that I have no idea what if feels like to have "peed my pants".

Sure the 50s may not be cold, but there is nothing wrong with turning them on at that temp just to warm up a bit.

Heat Settings

1.) Warm
2.) Hot
3.) Medium Rare
4.) Well Done
5.) Chernobyl
6.) Donna DeRosa

Even I can only go up to 5 in our A4. Six is way too hot, even for me. -- Donna

Yeah, I think I leave mine on 3. Anymore is way too hot.

@1487- 6 is German Overkill for sure.

I sometimes use my seat heaters even when it's not that cold because they feel great on a sore back. More so in Audi's that I've driven, the back elements get nice and warm. I'm not a big fan of my a** being on fire though.

If I use mine it's typically at 1 or 2. Though at 20 degrees in Tahoe once I turned em to 4.

Leather > Cloth when there is snow about. Leather is waterproof.

@ 1487,

40? Weaksauce. here in the midwest I've driven in the morning in single digit temps and my car doesn't have seat heaters. Nor are they necessary. Appreciated, perhaps but not necessary. But then again my car has cloth seats. Agreed that six is ridiculous. I don't even think the other luxury carmakers go up to six.

"Cold" is relative, no one is right or wrong. If you live in a warm climate your body will adjust such that yes, to many people 50F is cold enough to want to warm the seat. I usually use my seat heaters to take the edge off if the temp is about 55F or less and there's no sun. That's now cold to me, and I grew up in an area that had snowy winters.

"If you're going to make more than three settings, why not just give an adjustable dial?"

You mean like Audi used to, before they decided to overcomplicate the controls? :-)

"I haven't tried out Audi's , but the finest seat heaters I've ever experienced were in a 2002 Jetta Wolfsburg edition (cloth seats). They were hot within, I think, 90 seconds tops and just seemed to have the best radiant heat I'd ever felt through the seats. I wonder if that carries into Audi too."

I used to have an A4 with heated cloth seats and they were exactly as you described. They were spectacular.

@ jay

True, but it's not like people froze their a$$es off in the seat-heater-less days. That's all I was trying to say. That people, if they tried, could live without frivolities like seat heaters. Yes, even you, Donna.