Power Front seat problem
 

The FRONT part of the driver's seat's bottom does not tilt up or down anymore. All other seat adjustments work fine.

When I attempt to either raise or lower the height, I can hear the appropriate electric motor working, but the seat won't adjust. Its now stuck in a position where it is extremely uncomfortable for me to drive.

What likely problem am I looking at?

Seat motor drive assembly...look for a used seat.

Why would I need to find a used seat? Is that problem not fixable? Could it be a gear, or a broken cable?

Can I somehow manually raise the front of the seat and leave it permanently in that position? The other. and more important seat adjustments work fine.

I had the exact same problem with my 95 E320. The front of the seat is raised and lowered by a motor connected to a flexible drive shaft. The drive shaft very much resembles a speedometer cable--outer housing with flexible inner shaft. Inner shaft has square ends that engage motor on one end and drive unit on the other. In my case, the inner drive shaft slipped to far into the motor end. As a result, the square part of the inner drive shaft was no longer engaged in the drive mechanism. I inserted a 1/4 inch piece of piano wire into the motor drive end and then reinstalled the drive shaft. The 1/4 inch piece of piano wire prevents the inner part of the drive shaft from migrating to deep into the motor end. It has worked flawlessly ever since.

Figure 2 or 3 hours for this repair because the seat has to be removed. Once the seat is removed, the drive assembly is accessible from underneath.

Hope this makes sense.

J. M. van Swaay

Great answer. Very helpful.

Thanks

Yes it fixable. van Swaay is about correct. I had the same problem but it was on the forward/aft adjustment. Removed the seat, disconnected the by sliding out the circlip securing the cable specific to up/down motor. replace the steel cable (maybe cable sheared on one end inside the motor). Problem solved. Requires elbow greese too...