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GM removes heated seats and steering wheels for 2022


jasonj80

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This will actually hurt sales,  60k pickups and full size SUV’s without heated seats and steering wheels is not a good place to be in with the market the way it is. These are feature sought out by buyers and could easily have buyers looking at other brands. 
 

https://www.autonews.com/automakers-suppliers/gm-removes-popular-heated-seats-option-much-lineup-due-chip-shortage

 

 

https://www.carscoops.com/2021/11/chip-shortage-will-cause-drivers-to-freeze-their-butts-off-as-gm-axes-heated-seats/

Edited by jasonj80
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3 hours ago, jasonj80 said:

This will actually hurt sales,  60k pickups and full size SUV’s without heated seats and steering wheels is not a good place to be in with the market the way it is. These are feature sought out by buyers and could easily have buyers looking at other brands. 
 

https://www.autonews.com/automakers-suppliers/gm-removes-popular-heated-seats-option-much-lineup-due-chip-shortage

 

 

https://www.carscoops.com/2021/11/chip-shortage-will-cause-drivers-to-freeze-their-butts-off-as-gm-axes-heated-seats/

This doesn’t seem like a great idea, especially for those potential customers in north. I was just using mine a little bit ago. I would consider postponing my purchase If Ford did something like that. 

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Heated seats are the number 2 option requested feature in a new vehicle after blind spot monitoring. I

 

This is the issue when you outsource everything. Ironically there is the old GM/Delco/Delphi chip plant that is sitting vacant and being used as a parking lot to store vehicles with no chips because GM didn’t want to invest in updating it to make chips. 

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Mercedes Benz is also doing this sort of thing. They have canceled (almost) all of their V8 configurations for 2022 because they take more chips. They are still allowing people to do factory orders with whatever options they want, but when those vehicles arrive at the dealerships they will often have features like wireless charging or augmented reality missing, leaving the purchasers steamed especially with delays being so common on special orders. I saw a GLE 63 (a really expensive hot-rod version of the GLE) at one dealership with a very old style analogue driver's dash. It was a special order that the buyer refused. I am considering a factory order for a GLE 450. If I go ahead and if it comes with a bunch of features missing I would be inclined to also refuse the purchase as I'll be buying out my Lincoln Nautilus lease and will have the ability to wait as long as I want until I find exactly what I want. (At this point, it looks like it might be a long wait.)

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19 hours ago, Gurgeh said:

Mercedes Benz is also doing this sort of thing. They have canceled (almost) all of their V8 configurations for 2022 because they take more chips. They are still allowing people to do factory orders with whatever options they want, but when those vehicles arrive at the dealerships they will often have features like wireless charging or augmented reality missing, leaving the purchasers steamed especially with delays being so common on special orders. I saw a GLE 63 (a really expensive hot-rod version of the GLE) at one dealership with a very old style analogue driver's dash. It was a special order that the buyer refused. I am considering a factory order for a GLE 450. If I go ahead and if it comes with a bunch of features missing I would be inclined to also refuse the purchase as I'll be buying out my Lincoln Nautilus lease and will have the ability to wait as long as I want until I find exactly what I want. (At this point, it looks like it might be a long wait.)

 

My mom just got an (ordered) X7 - and it doesn't have the wireless phone charger because of a lack of chips.  Luckily hers was built/delivered before they removed the touchscreen ability mentioned above.

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9 hours ago, rperez817 said:

GM announced late Friday that it will allow certain vehicles built without heated and ventilated seats to be retrofitted with those features by dealership service departments. This retrofit capability does not apply to heated steering wheel. GM to dealers: Heated seats will be in more 2022 vehicles (freep.com)


It appears there must have been negative feedback regarding this idea, otherwise they wouldn’t have proposed this.   

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I find heated seats to be useless if you use a seat cover to protect your seats as I use a seat cover in my F150 Limited in order to protect my cars seats and the heated seats are useless with them 

but they are so worth it if you don’t use a seat cover as my husband Mercedes S class has heated seats and he does not use seat covers for his car and they work really well.

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On 11/23/2021 at 5:21 AM, gabby.m said:

I find heated seats to be useless if you use a seat cover to protect your seats as I use a seat cover in my F150 Limited in order to protect my cars seats and the heated seats are useless with them 

but they are so worth it if you don’t use a seat cover as my husband Mercedes S class has heated seats and he does not use seat covers for his car and they work really well.

 

That's like saying I need to sit on the seat naked because if I wear pants, they are useless.

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On 11/23/2021 at 2:07 PM, CKNSLS said:

Due to a lot of static from everybody-GM has now backed off and will have dealers install the chips to operate the heated seats . The heated steering wheels are still not available except on the highest trim levels.

Glad to hear that but I wonder why they can’t just put the heated steering wheel chip as well whenever that chip is in stock

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This was one "wussified" peeve I had when ordering my 2021 Ranger XL STX: heated seats were only available in the XLT High pkg and Lariat. I had aftermarket seat heaters installed on mine and they work great. The fact that an auto-dimming mirror is standard on an XL, but downgraded to a manual day/night when ordering Co-pilot 360 confounds me, though.

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On 11/21/2021 at 4:03 PM, rperez817 said:

GM announced late Friday that it will allow certain vehicles built without heated and ventilated seats to be retrofitted with those features by dealership service departments. This retrofit capability does not apply to heated steering wheel. GM to dealers: Heated seats will be in more 2022 vehicles (freep.com)

 

On 11/23/2021 at 1:07 PM, CKNSLS said:

Due to a lot of static from everybody-GM has now backed off and will have dealers install the chips to operate the heated seats . The heated steering wheels are still not available except on the highest trim levels.

Savvy gm dealers will order lots of these:

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  • 3 weeks later...

Removing these was a crazy stupid move on the part of the manufacturer. Heated seats are almost a requirement now for most drivers. There are many other features they could have dropped without affecting the heated seats. I was very happy when ordering our BS to see that the heated seats and steering wheel were still available.

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