If you are thinking of installing aftermarket seat cooling units in your vehicle, keeping your present seat cloth or leather. Here is some useful information.
The first thing you need to know is that you will need leather seats with perforated leather inserts....if you don't know what perforated and inserts pertaining to seats are, then don't consider doing this project yourself. This project price will range from $600 to $3000 and over.
If you have cloth or non perforated leather seats well, you will be buying brand new leather skins for all your seats. If you do have perforated leather on your seats already, you will still have to take the skins off your seats. you will then need to cut and remove the thin foam on the back of your leather skins. The next step is to add reticulated foam to the back of your leather where you removed the factory foam. This 1st step is done just to allow the cooled air to come out of your perforated leather holes.
This is just the first step and it gets more difficult from here. Whether you are ventilating your seats with just a fan unit or a top of the line Peltier air conditioning unit, proper mounting, ducting and wiring is critical. Here is a diagram of the unit.
Note that adding a simple aftermarket fan unit creates a ventilated seat. While adding an aftermarket Peltier air conditioning unit creates a true cool air conditioned seat. For the basics on the Peltier unit, ventilation, and air conditioned seats we suggest reading this informative article, How Cooled Seats Work The Basics.
The bottom line: If reading this article so far is "Greek" to you, if you are not mechanically inclined, and don't have the special tools, THIS TYPE OF PROJECT IS NOT FOR YOU! It is very complicated, just don't try it. Simply, have the professionals do it.
Eight years ago when we wanted to come out with a new line of air conditioned seats, that were never air conditioned from the factory back then. Our custom built 1999-2010 Super Duty F250 air conditioned seats took more than 3 months to design. The engineering company we hired to design them ran into many issues, due to the Super Duty seats having lumbar. Lumbar moves the seat cushion, which will interfere with the Peltier air conditioning unit and therefor special ducting had to be designed. As you can see....very complicated.
Now, Cooled seat cover kits which will just blow air on your back and bottom will be the easiest and least expensive way to get the air blowing around and under you. These cooled seat cover kits are available on Amazon and can be at your door the next day. Installation will be Easy Peasy.