Seat adjust malfunction 1996 E320
 

Hi,

I have a 1996 E320 sedan and the driver's seat adjust has been acting up for some time. I was wondering if someone might have an idea what is wrong. Here are the symptoms:

When I attempt to move the bottom of the seat towards the back of the car, it moves forward instead. When I attempt to move it forward it does nothing. The same thing happens when I attempt to recline, instead it does the opposite & moves forward.

Also, the head rest will not go up and down with the headrest adjust button.

Fortunately, when it first started acting up, I was able to save various extreme positions in the 3 memories so I can, at least, get the seat & headrest in the neighborhood of where they need to go.

Since the memory buttons seem to be able to move the seats in any direction, I think I can rule out any problems with the motors in the seats. My gut feel is that there is something wrong with the switch in the door.

Has anyone else run into this same problem ? If so, what was the solution ?

Thanks in advance for your help !

Brian

I will eagerly await some answers also. I have a similar issue with the passenger seat. On mine, the bottom and head rest move as they should, however the back moves forward whether or not I press the button to go back or forward. I tried re-syncing the seat but that didnt seem to help.

It sounds like the switch could be at fault. Hopefully that, rather than the module.

I am curious what "re-synching" is. How do you do that ?

Thanks,

Brian

1996 E 320 seat position malfunction
 

I have the same preoblem with my car. Passenger seat goes back when pushing the adjuster forward. I thought a worn switch so I radically moved the switch in all directions.

After a couple minutes of hard irratic pressure it started acting right. I atribute this to lack of use and corrsion or oxidation on the switch pads. The more I use it the less prevelant it becomes.

You can re-sychrnize the seat by putting the seat bottom and back all the way forward, putting the head rest all the way down.
This should help the problem.

Same Thing Here
 

I also will be interested in knowing how to fix this problem. My 96 E-320 is doing exactly the same thing. Imagine that, a common problem relating to MB electronics.

John Hamilton

Like others have said it could be as simple as oxidation on the contacts in the switch. If you get adventurous I suggest you try using a product called "deoxit" which is an excellent contact cleaner. Though I don't recommend you just spray it into the switch from the outside that might do it, I'd probably open it up and do a more surgical strike for best results.



It worked wonders on my radio's volume control which is another known glitch. I used to turn the volume knob and not know at all what would happen (turn it down the volume would go up and vice-versa).
I was able to spray it in by removing the knob, work it around and have it do its magic and restored about 95% of the function which I felt was acceptable considering how little effort and cost it took to perform the job. It's been over a year and still working fine.