Just bought my 2005 VW jetta gls tdi diesel (turbo) model car from local dealership in columbus, ga. My wife and I drove off the lot (literally) and she immediately turned on her new driver's side heated seat (black leather seat) to test it (lucky she did). The seat would not work at first, then it got hot, and hotter, and started burning her. She cut off the heat switch for the seat, and the seat remained hot. The switch started getting too hot to touch and smelled of smoke, so we turned around and brought the car back that same day/minute. The dealer said it was just the switch. They replaced the switch and when I picked it up, but it then it took about 5 minutes to get warm, but the switch wasn't smoking or extremely hot as before. The next day, the heated seat on the driver's side stopped working all together. Our third day of ownership, we had to schedule a service for the following Monday and do without the heated seat all together. The VW service advisor advised me he might have to replace the heating element in the seat itself although he commented "he knew nothing of such problems as this"-?. anyway, here we sit with a loaner awaiting the verdict, and it appears we might be inheriting a problem from way back. My issue is that the switch got extremely hot, and the seat was hot enough to cause a burn or a car fire. Yes, I know..keep the switch off -but, we had it off and the seat still kept getting hotter (during the first incident). I'm afraid these things are going to go bad and someone will have a little diesel car burning up around them with a faulty seatbelt trapping them in a fire! help, and please get engineering on this one ( re: # PE 03052)

- Box Springs, GA, USA