I just bought my first volvo last week and was disappointed that both heated seats didn't work. Well, after much research I decided to take a look under the seats to see what I could find. As soon as I looked under there I noticed two wires (a red and a red/white wire) going up into the bottom of the seat cushion. As I looked closer I saw what was wrong, the red/white wire had broken off. WHEW... I had some hope. I reached up in the seat where the wires were going and grabbed hold of a plasic disc shaped thing that the wires were plugged into and pulled it out of the seat. I realized this plastic disc shaped thing with a dime size metal disc was the thermostat. Well I simply crimped a new connector end on the red/white wire and plugged it back into the thermostat. Then I took the whole thing and pushed it back up into the bottom of the seat cushion. I then started the car and turned on the heated seat switch. To my amazement the seats started to heat up. Keep a long story short, I checked the passenger side seat and it was the same thing, the red/white wire had worn off and was hanging on by a thread. I fixed the wire and then that seat started working again. Well I thought I would share this with you incase you are looking for the same info I was looking for the past couple days. Just reach up in the seat where the circle hole is and pull out the whole thing with the wires still connected and very carefully check the wires to make sure they are still connected good. From what i have read, 90% of the time this is all that is wrong with it.

I was replacing my odometer gears tonight and after I got done I took a look under my driver's seat just out of curiosity from this thread. Sure enough, the red wire was broken.

What happened, obviously, is someone moved the seat to the extreme one way and it tore the wire.

I think if you get in there and cut the black rubber wire sheath that the seat heater wires reside in, it would releve some tension on them and allow them more travel with the seat.

Anyway, I got a new connector out of my parts bin and added 6" of wire to the red wire. Lo and behold, I have a fully functional heated seat now.

Thanks for posting.

Thanks for sharing. The driver's side doesn't work in my 94 wagon, so I will check this tonight.

Come to think of it, of the 7 Volvos I've owned with heated seats, the driver's seat has never worked. My wife has always got the heated passenger seat.

I take that back, the upper back heater worked in my 91 244, but the butt didn't heat up, which is what I really need on these cold, winter, Iowa mornings...

Check with a dealer to see if your car is under recall for the seat heater. They have had fires.

Seat heater overheating is not particularly a 1995 issue. I believe teh recall is limited to '96/'97 per my earlier research.
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Mike Sullivan '07 XC70, '95 855T (100k), '95 855 NA (148k). Past Volvo's: '85 744 (256k), '86 245 (165k), '86 245 (195k), '88 745 (208k), '91 745 (196k), '93 965 (147k) , '98 V70XC (98k).