New beastie in the stable - '96 s500
 

greetings and salutations!
i have happily owned a '79 300D for a few years now with the help of this forum. thank you all for that.
now the wife is pregnant and needed a safe, reliable car. i finally talked her into getting rid of her '00 Daewoo Leganza when lo and behold another Benz decided to grace our home.
Enter the 1996 S500 (120k miles, black, with more bells and whistles than i can shake several sticks at...) and my complete lack of knowledge of said beastie.
So, first question: does anyone have a digital copy of the owner's manual or know where i can obtain one (digital or hardcopy) on the wallet friendly side?
Second: after reading some of the S500 threads it seems that these luxurious doodads are going to be a PITA to maintain (had the car less than 24 hours and already blew the #30 fuse - a 20 amp for the nifty electric seat adjustments, which seems to have been an ongoing problem, judging by the PO's cache of spares in the center console). any particular problems / telltales to be aware of?
and third (although an admittedly lazy question): what does the ASR switch do? (besides lighting up a little yellow triangle with an exclamation point on the speedo)...
thanks again for entertaining my questions

ASR is traction control. The yellow triangle means you have turned it off.

Hardcopy of OM
 

Check e-bay for a hardcopy of your owners manual. I got one for an '89 190e 2.6 in the leather pouch with unused service booklet and all for $15 total. Guess people don't always use them to document their records.
LS

Triangle
 

P.S. The triangle will also flash when you are slipping and the traction control is doing its thing. A heavy foot is all it takes. Surprised you didn't discover that on the test drive. :)
LS

no test drive...

Turning it off, the triangle will display all the time, but
ETS will still be functional.

ETS - Will brake the rear wheel that spins faster than the other rear wheel.
ASR - Will limit the engine power if rear wheels spins faster than the front.

For manual, look here;
http://bayhas.com:8080/w140manu/

br,
syljua

one down...
 

ok, so i got an owner's manual.
now about the fuse that keeps blowing out. it's the #30 (20amp) for the seat and mirror adjustments. where should I start looking? i figured the seat switches are probably the culprit and most likely need to be cleaned.
thanks

Why not go about this methodically...
 

try to find out what you can do to the car that blows the fuse.

I'd start by adjusing each seat through its entire range of motion individually with and without you sitting in the seat.

Then try adjusting the mirrors throughout their range.

I don't know if the steering column uses that same fuse, but try it too.

Another possibility is the defrost circuits in the mirrors if they exist.

The most likely cause of a blown fuse is 1) a short circuit or 2) something seized up and requiring excess current for activation. I guess a switch could have a short but you need a more general diagnosis first.