This more of an advisory than a query for help.

I purchased a junkyard seat out of a newer model W201 to replace the seat in my older model W201. Both seats are manual, but the newer seat has the front height adjustment feature.

As is commonly known, there are five 10mm bolts that secure the seats in a W201. Two at the front of the seat, two at the rear, and one for the seat belt "thingy", (whatever that rail is for).

Tore the old seat apart, which was an educational experience itself, then removed the seat out of my W201. Before tearing apart my "good" seat, I thought to measure the dimensions of the mount rails to make sure they would fit. Measured the fore to aft dimension, and they were the same, so I removed the plastic shields and the recline knob. Unbolted the seat back which will go on the new bucked as is.

Removed the cover from the seat bottom and was very surprised at what I saw. I've only had the car for about a month, but wondered about the seat because it was so "soft and spongy". "Hmmm", I thought, "that's not like Mercedes. They always have firm seats." Well, turns out that one of the springs broke (a common problem) and in an attempt to repair, they shoved all kinds of foam padding in and around the springs in addition to cloth type padding between the springs and the cushion.

Oh, what a kludge job! I can surmise what happened. The spring broke and wore through the padding and started poking the driver in the thigh. Before it wore through the cover, he took the seat in to have it "fixed". What a botch job the did.

Removed the pad and cover and installed it onto the new bucket. Went on fine enough. Moved over the seat belt clip, attached the back, and went to install it into the car. This is where I ran into problems.

Even though the mount holes are the same dimension, fore and aft, the beam to beam, (side to side), dimension is about a centimeter (about a half an inch) off. I was finally able to get the left side down and torque the right side enough to line up the holes, use a large wrench as a brace, and secure the bolt.

Only problem is that now that the framing is torqued, the adjustments don't slide very easy. I'll now have to figure out how to secure both sides of the seat so that it is safe and the adjustments slide easily. At least the seat is not so spongy anymore. Feels like a real German car should.

Just a warning for others, make sure to measure all dimensions, because they differ over a production run.

__________________
-Steven

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1959 190b, totalled
1968 220D, sold
1969 230/8, sold
1980 240D manual, gave away at 300k (stupid me)
1985 190D 2.2 manual, gave away to a youngster
1989 300CE, sold when I retired - major regrets