It's Getting Hot in Here: Jeep Cherokee's Heated Seats are Scorchers
Cars.com’s long-term 2014 Jeep Cherokee Limited test car has a fantastic pair of heated front seats and a heated steering wheel. So much so that if I lived in a primarily wintry area I might be able to live with our Cherokee’s pokey engine and erratic nine-speed automatic transmission every day. That’s a big “might,” but it could be worth the instant warmth and comfort the Cherokee’s seats provide after they’ve had a long night in the cold.
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Our chilly home base in Chicago provides plenty of frigid weather for testing different types of bum warmers in vehicles. Some work better than others; the Cherokee Limited’s standard heated seats and heated steering wheel stand out. To see to how hot they get and how quickly it happens, I took an infrared temperature gauge to the leather-covered surfaces.
By no means scientific, the infrared temperature gauge I used doubles as a tuning tool for the small engines in remote-control cars. The plan was to monitor surface temperatures of the heated seats and the steering wheel at five-minute intervals. However, five minutes proved to be too long. The seats and wheel reached their maximum temperature in less than five minutes. I knew the temperature ramped up quickly, but I had no idea it was that quick. Impressive.
The heated steering wheel reached a maximum temperature of 85.5 degrees Fahrenheit, up from its resting 46.5 degrees temp before being turned on. While the driver’s seat bottom cushion, which was occupied by the weight of a driver, reached 93.3 degrees Fahrenheit, a 47.8-degree increase in less than five minutes.
Within two minutes of turning on the heaters, you’re already feeling the seat and wheel’s warmth circulate, and by 15 minutes, you’re ready to wipe the sweat from your forehead. Can it get any better? Yes, in fact, because the Jeep’s heating elements can be programmed to turn on with the factory remote start.
Cars.com photos by Joe Bruzek and Evan Sears
