Good Morning,

Do the ventilated seats ever produce any cold air??

I drove my sister's XF all day yesterday and noticed absolutely no cool air from the seats. In fact, by the time I returned the car to her late in the day, after about a 45 minute straight drive, the back of my shirt was damp.

I even experimented with turning the a/c to its lowest setting and drove around aimlessly for about 30 additional minutes, still nothing. Whereupon I also noticed that the air conditioner couldn't keep up with the moderate heat--exterior temp was showing 85.

She stopped by the dealer this morning and they pronounced everything to be working properly.

I've owned vehicles with ventilated as well as actual cooled seats, and in any of those, even the ventilated seats, I always began to feel cool air after a short time.

Thank you for any and all responses.

BTW, awesome car otherwise!

 

The heated/cooled seats are not part of the system air conditioning. They are controlled by the semiconductor Petlier(sp) effect. Current thru the device in one direction produces heat on one side and cool on the other. Reverse the current and the sides react oppositely. You can have heating or cooling at anytime. The Air conditioner can be on and you can heat the seats if you want. So you have to turn on the cooling to get the fans in the seat to blow air across the device to cool the seat. It is not automatic with the air conditioner.
Walt

 

Thanks for the response. I'm aware of how the seats work and that they function independently of the climate control system. Actually never felt any air at all from the seats cool or otherwise. I turned the radio and climate off and you can definitely hear the fan running in the seat. One reason I turned the a/c to its lowest setting just to see if that might make any difference, which it didn't. I drove for quite some time with in that manner and still nothing. I also expected the cabin to get REALLY cold, which it never did. After wasting a half tank of gas, I gave up and relayed my experience to my sister.

She said she hasn't used the seat coolers due to the shortness of her trips. But she did say the seat heaters warmed quite nicely.

 

I notice a cooling sensation within about 20 seconds of enabling cooling.

 

This may be a stupid question, but are the seats perforated?

 

Yes. Its a 2011 XF Premium.

 

Just making sure.
If you can hear the fan kicking, not sure why the seats wouldn't start cooling immediately.
The worse part is, the dealer probably won't touch it, unless it's broken....had a similar experience with another vehicle.

 

CadiDrvr, you didn't mention if you had activated any one of the three cooling settings from the climate screen. On my 2011 XF Premium the seat gets cool or cold depending on the setting, but it does not blow any air similar to the heat setting.

 

Both seats were set to max cool, even though passenger seat was empty.

Just stopped by the dealer and they gave me a 2012 loaner to drive and it wasn't any better than her 2011. I could feel a little cool air on my, er, bottom but nothing on my back in the 2012.

After much discussion, we decided (me, service advisor and service tech) that the seat coolers just aren't that great. I had them sit in my Escalade for comparison, and both were shocked at how cool the seats were, which absolutely surprised me as they are Porsche, Audi, Jag, Infiniti.

 

There's an additional setting to only cool or heat a portion of the seat. This is toggled by a cryptic icon in the climate settings that looks like a profile of the seat colored in black.

When I turn on my cooled seats, it takes about 20 seconds to feel it and it steadily gets stronger. I actually usually turn the cooling down one mark as the full setting is a little too cold. Maybe the filters under your seat clogged up or something?

 

Had the same experience with my 2009 S/C. I haven't tried the 2012 yet. Maybe Jag has incorporated a cost reduction.

 

I have tried it in my 2012 Portfolio and it does work, in fact, you can tell the system to cool the entire seat, just the seatback or just the seat itself. The graphic is difficult to see in the daylight.

 

Either the system was set for seat bottom only or something was wrong. My 2011 XF Premium is set for both seat bottom and seat back. The bottom never gets all that cool, but the seat back comes on very strong after several seconds. After a minute or two I have to turn it down, it's like leaning back against a block of ice.

 

Thanks for the responses guys.

Having experience with all the different systems, that was one of the first things was to make sure the system was set to cool the entire seat.

In the 2012 loaner, I could feel a little cool air from the seat bottom but nothing in the back area even though it was set to cool the entire seat as well.

Will go back to dealer on Monday and show them this thread.

 

in my 2010 I have to turn them off eventually as they feel too cold.

 

Well, I tried the 2012 seat cooling yesterday on an 84 degee day. After 3 or 4 minutes I had to reduce the cooling because the seat and seat back became too cold. Guess there was no cost reduction implemented for the seats between the 2009 and the 2012 MYs.

 

Yes it seems your seats just aren't working properly and they're trying to give you the run around. After a few minutes, my seats get cold to the point that it actually can become slightly irritating.

 

Mine never get so cold that I want to turn them off (on heat, on the other hand, they burn even on the lowest setting!). I have noticed variation in performance, but they always work, just not very well and sometimes better than at others, in my view. It isn't enough for me to do anything about it - my car is kept under cover 95% of the time, so it rarely gets hot.

 

Car sat in the garage Friday and Saturday. Upon driving Sunday morning, seat coolers worked as expected and while cool never became uncomfortably so even on highest setting. After sitting in the hot sun for a few hours doing the normal Sunday routine, NOTHING. Car is Taiga Green with Barley/Truffle interior.

Also noticed that the a/c was having a difficult time keeping the interior cool, even though it was set to 60. Since I drove a new BMW on Saturday with the same problem, I'm assuming that the European systems aren't equipped to handle the heat/humidity combo we in the South deal with every summer.

 

Jaguar uses Ford designed HVAC systems and should be equivalent to North American designs. However, Europeans have a different sense of how automatic climate control should work. It is unlikely that the software engineers who programmed the jaguar HVAC thought of someone wanting a 60 degree interior on a hot day.

The computer selects air temperature to bring the cabin temperature to the selected setting progressively. Modern automatic climate control systems will tend not to blow excessively hot or cold air unless HI or LO is selected. The objective is to comfortably and rapidly achieve the desired temperature which often involves more air exchange than low or high air temperature.

For those of us who live in cooler places we tend to set the temperature once and leave it there regardless of outside temperature and let the auto system do its thing.