Heated seats of death?

So if you're paranoid, here's something else you might want to worry about: Your car's heated seats could kill you. Yes, KHOU found a guy who suffered serious burns from his car's heated seats, which reached a scorching 165 degrees. Not to make light of his case, but is it sweeps week or what?

Al Davis, who was paralyzed by a car accident 20 years ago, has a 2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee with heated seats. One day, he laid his clipboard down and accidentally turned on the seats — "The next thing I knew I smelled something and it was me, burning," he said. "I reached back there and the seat was almost on fire." Davis says he suffered severe burns that kept him in Methodist Hospital for four months, where he racked up a $900,000 medical bill. An engineering study found Davis's seat reached 165 degrees, and attorney Steve Mostyn found the passenger seat got to 155 degrees. How hot is 165 degrees? It's the temperature of very hot coffee — the kind that causes severe scalding — and it's hot enough to kill bird flu. Chrysler said heated seats should not get hotter than 106 degrees.

Though Volvo and BMW have issued recalls on heated seats, Chrysler and Chevrolet haven't. A Chrysler spokesman said the company is moving the on/off switch to a more prominent place on the dashboard, and beginning with 2007 models, the seat heater will automatically turn off after a while. In the meantime, you might want to keep an eye on your heated seats — and, for that matter, you might want to wonder why you use them at all in Houston.