Heated Seat on SW?

Dear fellow Wingers,

As I have saved up a good few pennies since I bought my secondhand 2007 SilverWing 400 some 4 years ago, I have been asking myself if there is anything I want/need in my life that requires this transitory/elusive thing we call money?

Well, embarrassingly or proudly, depending on which way you view these things, all I could come up with was a new and better scooter! And so began my quest to find such a beast Anyway, to cut a long story short I became obsessed with the BMW C650 GT with it's 60% bigger engine, ABS brakes, motorised windscreen, heated grips, and "heated seat". BUT the cheapest secondhand one here in Austria is still €8,500!! Also, I became a little alarmed about the numerous recalls and computerised updates I was reading about on the BMW Scooter Forum.

Anyway, my madness eventually passed when I realized just how happy I am with my bike just the way it is, together with the essential (for me) mods I have made: Heated Grips together with Tucano muffs, Tucano Termoscud leg cover, Givi Airflow screen, and Utopia back rest!

However, having thought about how useful a heated seat combined with the leg cover would be for me during the winter months (I ride all year round, even below freezing if it's dry!), I went searching, and found a seat heating kit on Amazon. As this will involve completely removing the seat cover, I remembered that I had seen some really nice custom made leather covers for The SW on ebay, and figured that a jazzy new cover and a warm bum (arse to our American cousins), would be a good project for the summer, and a reward to myself for not blowing all my savings on a new bike I don't actually need!

So, now I come to the part of this post where I ask my question to all you experts out there (You knew it was coming, right?)

The under seat heating element draws 35W of power and I already have my heated grips wired up to the battery which draws exactly the same (35W). Is it feasible to have both running at the same time on our scooters or am I asking for electrical problems??

All the best

SteVe

While I'll leave the technical electrical jargon to those more knowledgeable in the field than I, I can tell you I have taxed the Silverwing's power system more than 95% of our crowd, and had no problems.

Two spare halogen fork lights are 55 watts each, and a small %age of what I used to run concurrently.

You can also look at corbin.com which makes custom seats for most bikes including the wing.
They may also have the heating option for the wing.

Dan

One thing that popped into my head Steve would be to alternate between the two. Turn the seat on for a while then the grips. I have no real idea whether or not using both would tax the system or not but I don't think using one or the other would be any problem. Just my thoughts.

Thanks for your speedy comments Dan and Dale!

Dan, it sounds like my proposed combined draw of 70W (grips 35W + Seat 35W), will be fine if you've been running over 100W of powerful lights on your machine

Yes, I've seen those Corbin seats on this site and they look very impressive but I should imagine that they cost a pretty penny, and I would also have to pay outrageous import taxes here in Austria, as was the case when I ordered my Utopia back rest. The equally impressive seat cover I have found is actually made in Germany and the cost of this and the heating kit come in at around just €100 combined!

SteVe

Corbin make a heated seat for the BMW C650GT so it would seem they should be able to put the heating elements in a Silverwing seat. I have heated grips and seat on my 659GT and love them. Great along with my Gerbings jacket liner and heated gloves.
Heated grips and gloves go together great. The grips heat you palms and the gloves heat the more exposed backs of your fingers and hand.
BTW - it seems that BMW has the recalls and computer updates pretty well fixed now. The main issues were the timing chain tensioner and handlebar switches which have all been replaced now. I haven't had a real problem with my GT since I bought it, the original tensioner and switches were fine.

Like Steve says, the cost of buying and importing a heated Corbin seat into Austria would be prohibitive, even if Corbin made a heated seat for the Silver Wing. Some forum members in the U.S. have baulked at the cost of importing a set of Honda leg wind deflectors from the UK in the same way and they're a lot less expensive than a Corbin seat.