C55 Tyre pressures and heated seats

[Aquanaut]

Hello all, i have had my C55 a year now and i was curious if any other mercs have the same 'problem'. Just started using the heated seats again and they only heat up the back support and not the sitting part. Is this normal? It is the same in the passenger seat as well. Seems odd that it would only heat your back.
Also i lose air pressure in the tyres far more than any other previous car. They are uniform loss around the 4 tyres, usually 2 psi a week. This affects the steering so having to inflate the tyres every 10 days or so.
Just curious if any other merc drivers have the same problems.

[lightweight]

Congrats great car, cant comment on the seats never used the button will test tonight and let you know.

Tyre presure sounds like the rims have a hairline crack in them its a common weekness in cars with low profile tyres and large ofsets. a new wheel fitted by MB Brooklands cost me £300.I have the old one and can see the damage on the inner.This is more of a problem for people on 19" rims ie BMW Porsche especaly Ruf so i understand.

Edited by lightweight on Wednesday 11th November 14:27

[markbe]

Aquanaut said:

Hello all, i have had my C55 a year now and i was curious if any other mercs have the same 'problem'. Just started using the heated seats again and they only heat up the back support and not the sitting part. Is this normal? It is the same in the passenger seat as well. Seems odd that it would only heat your back.
Also i lose air pressure in the tyres far more than any other previous car. They are uniform loss around the 4 tyres, usually 2 psi a week. This affects the steering so having to inflate the tyres every 10 days or so.
Just curious if any other merc drivers have the same problems.

Re tyre pressures, do your alloys have the 'bolt in' valves?
On mine, 'good old Merc' left them slightly loose!! a tighten up resolved the
problem.

Mark.

[SLacKer]

My C32 and my SLK32 have the seat base issue. The heating matrix is attached to the leather pad and breaks due to the person sitting on it over time. There are two solutions

1. Buy new seat base covers circa £600 for 2 + fitting from a dealer and hope they go wrong in the year so you can have them replaced again.
2. Replace with aftermarket seat heat pads and never go wrong again.

Guess which approach I took

Can help you out with the replacement seat pads and what to use if you want to fix yourself.

[HUW JONES]

Heated seat issue is one of the "known faults" on the C55 I believe.Indeed had my driver's heated seat sorted under warranty....together with the climate control and buzzing driver's door HK speaker which needs a new set of switches ie boot release etc but that problem has now recurred.

[AndyS2]

SLacKer said:

Can help you out with the replacement seat pads and what to use if you want to fix yourself.

Give us a clue then? My E55 is doing the same thing and I'm certainly not paying £600 to fix it!

[SLacKer]

I have replaced all four base heat pads three with carbon heat elements and one with an element from the SLK230/320 which is a separate unit and a lot cheaper. Before this you might want to check whether you have an open circuit in the seat heater. Use a meter for this and if you have a circuit then check the feed to the seat (although the back and base share the same feed so if the back works the base is most likely open circuit).

Carbon pad

http://www.dk-schweizer.com/dk_europe/products/com...

I got 3 for £80 all in from their Colchester branch 0120 621 1682

They come wired to a plug which is not compatible with the Merc plug so you need to cut, strip and solder to the merc plug. Take the seats out and strip the base cover off, insert the heat pad, put cover back on and reinstall. Now the trick with the seat cover is that it is folded over itself and attached to a plastic strip which locates it in a grove in the seat base. At first it looks like it will not come off but find the spot on the particular seat where you can get it off and the rest comes off pretty easily. I used a small headed flat screwdriver to get into the grove and get the cover loose. I got so good at it that the final seat in the C32 I did in situ. Now once the edge is loose you can peal back the seat cover and you will find a some small plastic clips that hold the seat cover to the base, I found long nose pliers useful to push the clip into the seat base and unhook it from the thin rod.

Now, the passenger seat has a child seat detector in it and for that reason I would suggest disconnecting the battery or at the very least no ignition is on at all. I do not know if it would have an effect with it disconnected but didn't want a chance of some daft warning lamp to be stuck on.

The only slightly negative side of it is that the base takes about twice as long to get to full heat afterwards as it has the padding of the original heater between it and the cover. It is only a few minutes though and I am happy with that. The only solution for that would be to take the foam off the cover and I am not sure what effect that would have on the cover.

There are a few threads on here about the seat issue in the SLK32

http://www.benzworld.org/forums/r170-slk-class/127...

Search the forum for heated seats or threads with me in and you will find a few posts.

I have a few pictures of the SLK passenger seat fix

ready for some soldering


Shows the passenger seat child seat detector


Clip shown detached using long nose pliers (grey material to right is seat heater carrier padding)


Start of the seat cover grove note screwdriver


The SLK uses cardboard the C32 uses a plastic strip


More of the groove and the seat cover released


I assume the E55 would be of a similar design but I have not done one.

[Aquanaut]

Thank you to all posts, especially Slacker! Will try going through Mercedes to repair first of all as i have another year on tier 1 waranty so hopefully it will cover it. If not it will be self repair route. Thanks again.