The contact owns a 2004 Chrysler Sebring. While driving approximately 25 mph, the contact detected smoke inside the vehicle. The contact coasted over to the side of the road and noticed that the driver's seat was really hot and had two burn holes. There was also a hole in the contact's jeans. The contact was not injured. The front passenger seat was also burned through the seat cover. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was not made aware of the failure. The approximate failure mileage was 110,000.

- Quincy, MA, USA

The contact owns a 2004 Chrysler Sebring. The contact stated that the driver's seat electrical heating system failed and burned through the material. The manufacturer's engineer inspected the vehicle and concluded that the failure was not caused by a manufacturer defect. The vehicle was not repaired. The failure and current mileage was 97,000.

- Christiansburg, VA, USA

The contact owns a 2004 Chrysler Sebring convertible. While driving at speeds of less than 65 mph utilizing the heated seats, he noticed that the seat became hotter than usual. He then noticed there was smoke coming from the seat and a small fire immediately ignited. He was still driving as the incident occurred at 65 mph. He attempted to extinguish the fire without crashing into another vehicle and swerved in and out of traffic as his right pant leg was ablaze. He was able to extinguish the fire with a jug of water that was inside of the vehicle. He suffered moderate burns to his right leg. The dealer was contacted and stated that there was a malfunction in the vehicle. The manufacturer also stated that there were no recalls on his vehicle and his warranty was not valid for the heated seats there was nothing that they could do to assist him. The failure mileage was 86,000 and the current was 90,000.

- Isanti, MN, USA

The contact owns a 2004 Chrysler Sebring. While driving 65 mph with the driver side heated seat activated he noticed that the mechanism burned through the seat which caused injury to the drivers right leg. The vehicle was taken to the dealer who stated that the heating element needed to be replaced. There were no prior warnings. The current mileage was 90,000 and the failure mileage was at 86,000.

- Asanti, MN, USA

In may of 2008, my wife was driving the vehicle with her purse on the passenger seat. She smelled something burning and looked over to discover that her purse was burning along with the passenger seat. She pulled off the freeway and was able to extinguish the fire. The bottom of her purse was charred and the passenger seat had a burn whole about the size of a quarter. The fire was due to the defective seat warmer. The seat warmer has a range of 1-5 with 1 being the lowest. The warmer was on 3. I had brought the car to the dealership several times when it was under warranty with the complaint of the seat warmers overheating. I had felt a burning on the drivers side and was convinced that there was an issue with the seat warmer. Additionally my wife had mentioned that she felt similar overheating on the passenger side. Each time I brought it in to Chrysler, I was told that there was no problem. I had asked them to search for recalls as well as tsb's. I was told there were none. There was in fact a tsb issued for this exact problem before I had brought my car in to be examined. It seems that this was either ignored or overlooked on at least 2 occasions. We kept the control at 3 or below and this seemed to help for a bit, however it still got too hot on many occasions and we had to turn them off. I have discovered recently that the Chrysler Jeep for 2004 was recalled for exactly the problem that I had. Now the Mercedes (damlierchrysler) is under investigation for the same problem as well. I brought the car back to the dealership on 7/2/2008 hoping that they would help resolve this. I was told that a manager was putting a call into Chrysler to see what could be done. I called latter in the day for status and was told that the manager was at the dentist. When I picked up the car, I was told that he never returned form the dentist. I am now (7/9/08) being told that the Chrysler factory rep is on vacation and will not be back until 7/14/08.

- Danville, CA, USA

2004 Sebring convertible touring edition with 25,700 miles. Leather interior with heated seats. While sitting in the parking lot of my son's school, my son felt something hot on his back. The heated seats were on 1, the heating element burnt through the cushion and leather seat back and also burnt a hole into his coat. The cushion or the polyester fill in his coat was in a black molten form and burnt the tip of his finger and he jumped out of the car. The hole in the seat was the size of a quarter and needed to be extinguished with a water bottle to stop it from burning, the seat was on fire! Chrysler dealership wouldn't cover repairs, not a warranty problem. Separate warranty that was purchased didn't want to cover damages, upholstery is not covered, but I argued this is not normal wear, seats don't catch on fire. The final outcome, warranty company sent a used seat to my home. Car dealership charged $65 to call warranty company with a list of parts totaling $ $3,200 for seat back. When an agreement between warranty company and myself to install a used seat, dealer wanted an additional $ $85 to install seat. Thus the reason the seat was sent to my house. Had this occurred while driving on the highway an accident would've been certain.

- Warwick, RI, USA

Driving the freeway on 91 degree day and right front passenger seat catches fire due to seat heating element which was not turned on. Car was turned off and police used dry chemical extinguisher. The heat element continued to produce significant heat until unplugged by the fire department.

- Waterford, MI, USA

While driving to work I began to smell something funny, the drive to work takes about one hour, I checked around the car for a reason for the smell but could not find anything. On my way home that evening from work I could smell it again. When I stopped by a store near my home I picked my purse up off the front passenger seat and noticed a hole on my front passenger seat that had burned through and also burned though a piece of paper that had been on the front seat and it had also burned through to the bottom of my purse. I immediately turned off my heated car seats both passenger and drivers seat. This could have been much worse if someone was sitting in the passengers seat at the time or if this was the driver seat that overheated and burned through. I called the next day to Chrysler but they were closed until mon. I plan on calling them on Monday to report this and see what their responsibility is for defect.

- Monroe, WA, USA

On a recent trip out of town I smelled smoke which I thought was coming from the car in front of me. As I went further the smell became a bit stronger and I knew it was coming from my car. I wound up pulling off the interstate, pulling into an empty lot and jumping out. When I reached in for my pocketbook I saw smoke billowing up out of the passenger seat of my Chrysler Sebring. After turning the car off and the control to the seat, which had been turned on accidentally, the smoke dissipated. I took it to the garage and they in turn unplugged the heating elements and told me they would order a new one and a new seat cushion since that was damaged in the fire. My husband called to check on the parts he was told they had received the heating element but were waiting on the cushion. When he asked if they were going to replace all the elements he was informed that only the faulty one would be replaced at this point. I then contacted Chrysler only to get the same response from them. My feelings are that if one element was faulty then the rest most likely are. The Dodge Caravan have been recalled for this reason. Wouldn't it seem they're using the same combustible elements in the Sebring as in the Caravan" I know of 3 other people in our small community that have had their seats go up in flame. How many people or injuries does it take before they'll do a recall" the worst case scenario would have been if my oxygen-toting mother-in-law had been in that seat as she is on most occasions!

- Veazie, ME, USA

Heated seat fire on 2004 Chrysler Sebring limited. On a trip with our family - the passenger heated seat was turned on at some point getting in our out of the car. A standard insulated cooler was sitting on the seat so nobody knew it was on. We continued to smell a foul burning smell (similar to diesel fumes) and began to move lanes, roll the windows down, etc. A short time later, the smell became severe and the car began filling with smoke (while traveling down the highway). I pulled over, made sure everyone was out of the car and started to look around the interior. Found a portion of the cooler melted to the seat bottom. Several sandwich bags had melted to seat also. I turned the switch off, and let it cool, then continued down the road. Within 5-7 minutes, the car was filling with smoke again - I had to pull off the highway immediately and remove the relay from the pdb to cut the power supply to the seat. We called poison control that night since our newborn infant was in the car with us and inhaled the burning by products. I scheduled an appt at the dealership shortly there after to have this addressed - it took months to get this repaired - and when delivered back to me - was supposedly checked by technician. The relay was not even installed in the pdb! I have more information and pictures - the website limited information in this box.

- Saline, MI, USA

While driving, the passenger seat started to smoke due to seat heater failure. The dealership did not resolve the problem.

- Silver Creek, NY, USA