You know...I think that kind of damage comes with age alone...the same thing started happening to the seats in my 300CD...seems like that unraveling of the gathers happens when the car sits for a long period of time unused, then when you start using the seats again, they do that really easily because the thread gets brittle and rips super easy just from age.

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Current cars:
2000 ML55 AMG, 174k miles
2003 C240 T-Modell, 202k miles
1995 S320, 207k Miles