{"id":8114,"date":"2026-05-08T14:54:04","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T18:54:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.autonocion.com\/us\/?p=8114"},"modified":"2026-05-08T14:54:04","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T18:54:04","slug":"volkswagen-heated-seat-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.autonocion.com\/us\/volkswagen-heated-seat-lawsuit\/","title":{"rendered":"A Volkswagen Tiguan Owner Says the Heated Seats Burned Her. A Judge Just Said the Case Can Go to Trial"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you have ever felt FOMO about people paying for heated seats, maybe count yourself lucky. What is that TikTok comment? “Being broke has saved me once again.”<\/p>\n

The 2023 Volkswagen<\/a> Tiguan actually comes with heated seats (no extra payment required). The S trim has heated cloth seats; the SE & SE R-Line Black trims have heated V-Tex synthetic leather seats; and the SEL R-Line trim has heated and ventilated genuine leather seats. That one sounds particularly luxurious. However, these heated seats led to a very disturbing accident for one woman.<\/p>\n

Emily LaPrade claims in her lawsuit against Volkswagen that she suffered second-degree burns due to the heated seats. Due to a defective design, LaPrade was burned back in September 2023 (when the car was new). This incident occurred because LaPrade was left paralyzed from the waist down in a previous car crash back in 2014. This left her unable to feel the heat from the seats.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit is now moving forward, three years later.<\/p>\n

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What is the basis of this lawsuit against Volkswagen?<\/h2>\n

On New Year’s Day back in 2014, LaPrade was in a car accident that left her paralyzed from the hips down. She explained that she can now only feel “a little bit of tingling.” Knowing she can’t feel any sensations, she has tried to be very aware of anything sharp, hot, or cold touching her.<\/p>\n

While driving with her husband in 2023, LaPrade turned the seat heater to the highest of three settings. This lasted about 20 to 30 minutes before she put it down to the second setting for another hour. Once she got home, LaPade noticed blisters on her backside. When they started peeling the day after, LaPrade and her husband realized she suffered second-degree burns.<\/p>\n

While one could argue this is user error, LaPrade argues that Volkswagen didn’t provide any warnings or instructions about the seat heater. However, the 2023 Volkswagen Tiguan’s owner’s manual states that “anyone experiencing reduced sensitivity to pain or temperature” should not use the seat heating feature. The judge dismissed this admission.<\/p>\n

Now, Volkswagen is claiming there is no defect. The carmaker said there is no proof to support this. But this hasn’t stopped this claim from proceeding to trial, with VW arguing that the plaintiff’s expert about the seat temperature being too high wasn’t qualified.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cThe plaintiffs\u2019 design defect claim may proceed to trial. Plaintiffs\u2019 defective warning claim and Mr. LaPrade\u2019s claim for loss of consortium are DISMISSED with PREJUDICE,\u201d stated the judge, Tiffany M. Cartwright.<\/p>\n

According to Autoblog<\/strong>, there have been seat-heating-related injuries before, largely involving Mercedes-Benz and BMW vehicles. In some of these instances, the seating surface was starting to wear out, causing the heating mat’s electrical wire to break. This isn’t the case for Volkswagen, however. It’s still unclear if the seat truly gets too hot or if this was a very specific incident with LaPrade.<\/p>\n

For now, I wouldn’t get too worried about using heated seats in your car, even a Volkswagen Tiguan. But maybe don’t use the highest setting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you have ever felt FOMO about people paying for heated seats, maybe count yourself lucky. What is that TikTok … <\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":8119,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[32],"class_list":["post-8114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-volkswagen","resize-featured-image"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.autonocion.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.autonocion.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.autonocion.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.autonocion.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.autonocion.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8114"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.autonocion.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8120,"href":"https:\/\/www.autonocion.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8114\/revisions\/8120"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.autonocion.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.autonocion.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.autonocion.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.autonocion.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}