It's been cold recently and I decided to turn on the seat heater in the morning. The first time I tried, nothing happened when I tried the driver's side heater. The passenger side heater worked fine. I checked the fuse when I got home and found that the one for the driver's side heater had blown. I replaced it and tried high heat again. The dome light dimmed for a second and then the seat heater indicator turned off. It had blown the fuse again. I replaced the fuse and tried low heat. That worked just fine. I drove it with just low heat for the rest of the week.

This weekend I dug in a little bit deeper. It turns out that this fall when I took the seat out to add a little bit of padding I had connected the seat belt sensor to one leg of the seat heater box (and in turn hooked one of the seat heater pads to the dash buzzer and light control). Mercedes used the same connectors, and even the same color wire for the two seat heater elements and for the seatbelt sensor. All is well again and I have high heat again after putting the wires back where they belong.

-Tad

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1995 G320
2003 C230 Kompressor Coupe
2005 ML500
2007 ML350

Heck, I didn't even know W123's had seat heaters.....

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Jimmy L.
'05 Acura TL 6MT
2001 ML430 My Spare

Gone:
'95 E300 188K "Batmobile" Texas Unfriendly Black
'85 300TD 235K "The Wagon" Texas Friendly White
'80 240D 154K "China" Scar engine installed
'81 300TD 240K "Smash"
'80 240D 230K "The Squash"
'81 240D 293K"Scar" Rear ended harder than Elton John

yea.. news to me

Same here...

I'll take the seat heaters out of your parts car.

Haha, it doesn't have heaters.

Here's the dirty console with the heater switches in it:


-Tad

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1995 G320
2003 C230 Kompressor Coupe
2005 ML500
2007 ML350

I'll take those then.

That must have been a rare option. I've looked at many W123s and never seen seat heaters.

me want

I agree, MB should have done a better job on their connectors. Take the window switch connectors, those can be plugged in in the wrong place and upside down. 1 combination I tried instantly popped the fuse. I finally have all the windows working again. Wouldnt it have been easy for them to just put plugs in the connector holes so they only went one way?

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1982 300CD Turbo (Otis, "ups & downs") parts for sale
2003 TJ with Hemi (to go anywhere, quickly) sold
2001 Excursion Powerstroke (to go dependably)
1970 Mustang 428SCJ (to go fast)
1962 Corvette LS1 (to go in style)
2001 Schwinn Grape Krate 10spd (if all else fails)

It was an option, although a very rare one.

One of my previous bosses had an 85 300TD, a Kalifornia version, with seat heaters. Why somebody in California would want seat heaters is beyond me. Maybe for those days it gets below 70*?

I wish I had seat heaters! What does it take to add them?

A euro 500SEL I was tearing apart at the U-pick yard last friday had both front AND rear seat heaters according to the console (the switches were there).....which was laying on the floor in 2 pieces! And the seats were....destroyed. That poor car. I did get about 60 valuable parts off it though.

It also had a funky looking switch next to the hazard switch, no idea what it was....looked like an exclamation point with no dot? And, on the drivers side kick panel it had a "secret" light switch that was stock. Like the one for the rear dome light in our cars, except it was on the driver kick panel. Odd!

And I got a turn signal/cruise stalk with the words in german! cool!

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-diesel is not just a fuel, its a way of life-
'15 GLK250 Bluetec 118k - mine - (OC-123,800)
'17 Metris(VITO!) - 37k - wifes (OC-41k)
'09 Sprinter 3500 Winnebago View - 62k (OC - 67k)
'13 ML350 Bluetec - 95k - dad's (OC-98k)
'01 SL500 - 103k(km) - dad's (OC-110,000km)
'16 E400 4matic Sedan - 148k - Brothers (OC-155k)

The seat heat on my '83 240D rocks. Could be a little bit quicker to heat up, but for 24 yrs old, I can't complain. Didn't realize it was such a rare option.

That said, I haven't had to mess with the connectors (yet). Thx for the heads up.

Corey