AMG_Guy

Hey all,

So this is driving me crazy, when the passenger seat is unoccupied the headrest rattles like crazy over any type of road surface. I have searched on here and found one person that said to remove the headrest and bend the bars closer, but I was unable to remove the headrest.

Can anyone offer me any help before I go completely crazy?

Thanks!

miraclewhip_cls

you need wheel alignment or wheel re-balance I had the same problem after wheel alignment & wheel re-balance it was gone.

AMG_Guy

I've had that though...I had 4 new tires, all balanced and aligned by my MB dealer.

miraclewhip_cls

you may have slight bend on wheel chances are rear wheel but contact you MB Dealer & tell them after alignment & balance you notice this

AMG_Guy

But wouldn't the seat still then rattle over bumps and such?

I found when searching that other CLS owners said the passenger seat headrest rattles and something about replacing the guides.

djrabbi

I got same problem....

I replaced my ball joints and balance/alignment. All gone

AMG_Guy

Hmm, maybe I should get the balancing re-checked them. It just seems odd to me that it makes such a rattling noise, really heard alot over bumps and such, I just can't really imagine a balancing fixing it.

djrabbi

I was STAR lowered and when I hooked up my DAS to it, I was like 10mm lower on right side so it was more stress on the right side. put everything back to stock and got ball joints and such done. No more.

AMG_Guy

And it was the passenger headrest making the noise? Like, if you put your hand on the headrest while driving the noise would go away?

djrabbi

Like if I push against the headrest it stops

AMG_Guy

Yeah that's what mine does, when I had my dealer look at it they said the headrest guides may need to be replaced and they would have to further disassemble the seat to be sure, but I told them to forget it...but now it's getting REALLY annoying.

djrabbi

Where are you on East Coast?

AMG_Guy

The ocean state, Rhode Island

djrabbi

Yeah just go to an Indy and get all that figured out

Jonathan G.

I have an 06 cls55 with 19" oem wheels and
I have this exact same problem and I have had it for 55000 miles!
It drives me freaking crazy!!
I brought it to the dealer and they tried tightening up the headrest rails and seat rails.
Then they checked my tires and told me they were slightly out of round and that was why it was happening.
I changed tires and no real improvement and then was given grief that the vredestein ultrac sessanta's were not m-b oem so that was the problem.
I showed them that our donut spare tire was vredestein so m-b clearly must have faith in that company with our safety at stake, lol.
Then I was told it was due to my oem wheels being out of round and I had them refurbished and everything hunter road forced rebalanced.
There was some improvement for some time but not complete and eventually back to bad as usual.
I believe car was 4 well aligned as well but no ball joints were replaced.
The seat headrest rails were replaced and this helped for maybe 1-2000 miles then problem recurred.
I went to another dealer who tightened the headrests and this helped for about 1000 miles and the problem recurred again.
I recently just put on 4 brand new Michelin super sport tires and had my wheels again refurbished and still have the problem.
I may have to replace the now 7 year old oem 19" wheels with a good substitute since those oem wheels seem to get out of round very easily with ny metro region pot holes! ( any suggestions for low cost well made strong 19" wheels stock sizes??) wheel guys have told me that the06 cls55 wheels had a contaminant in the aluminum and they are known to be weak but m-b won't own up to it.....
I will try another four wheel alignment but how do you know if the ball joints are the problem?
How much to replace them?
I am still not convinced that it is not a defect or design flaw in the headrests or seats or seat mounts. I have had other m-bs, bmws , audis etc and never had this problem.
I am excited to see this post and see I am not the only one being driven crazy by this annoying problem!
This annoyance iss the number one reason that I would consider getting rid of my cls55!! If it could be solved, I would be a very happy camper!

AMG_Guy

Glad I'm not the only one with the issue! It's pretty crazy how much it vibrates, it is REALLY driving me crazy. My dealer told me they would have to replace the guides for the headrest, but it sounds like from what you say that's not a permanent fix.

Jonathan G.

Youare not alone and it is insane how much it rattles!
It is difficult to understand how a 4000+ vehicle that originally had an MSRP north of $94k can have a head rest effected by a wheel or tire being slightly out of round or an alignment slightly off without there being a serious design flaw or manufacturing defect.
I have also tried putting padding from an old hockey helmet in the space where the head rest move forward and backward and that helps dampen things to a degree.
You can also shove a rubber wedge or nerf ball between the passenger seat back and the center console which braces the seat to a degree.

I have not yet tried putting a heavy duffle bag on the passenger seat and seat belting it in but that could be the next step, lol! Ridiculous.

I did learn from the responses to your post that bad ball joints could be responsible for this rattle and will check that out soon , though I have difficulty understanding how you can have a good alignment but still have bad ball joints?

Please keep me posted on what you discover and happy holidays!

AMG_Guy

I really don't see how it could be ball joints or a balancing, because the sound the headrest makes when I drive over bumps is just ridiculously loud rattling.

Dogshine

mine was a clicking sound coming from where the plastic touches the leather. i put leatherique (a decent amount) around and under the plastic and that helped for a bit. it got rid of the clicking but i still have some of the headrest noise. the other thing i have found is if the headrest is down it moves less and depending on the angle of the seat it will move more or less as well.

UDWANIT2

same issue only on spacers ....with my rims no prob...

mrweelr

After a lot of trial and error, I finally fixed all of the irritating seat and pano roof noises on my E55. Had the EXACT same issue with my passenger side headrest and driver headrest to some degree. It's a combination of the plastic caps rattling and the metal bars wiggling in their guides. Any play in those areas is going to cause noises when the car goes over irregularities in the road.

The fix is to pop off the plastic caps and stick a whole bunch of those small round furniture felt pads you buy at Home Depot all around the metal bars and filling the entire oval space under the caps to remove any play in there. I stack them and push the edges tightly against the metal bars. Stick/stack as many of them as you can under those caps and then push very hard down on the caps to snap them back in place. The other thing you need to do is lower your headrests into the absolute lowest positions. This should eliminate all of the headrest rattling. If you still hear it while driving, keep shimming up those pads under the caps until the noises are gone.

Between the pano roof creaks, headrest rattles and popping/creaking ball joints, I felt like I was driving a Ford Taurus or something. Take the time to fix those noises and you'll fall in love with your car all over again.

Good luck!

1SickCLS

i used a black ziptie around the two metal bars and that has pretty much fix it for me

Lofa

Hi
I also had a very anoying rattle from passanger side seat. I thought it was the headrest, but i found something else.

After some research on the seat, i found the actual noise to come from one of the bearings in the seat coolingfans, so i just removed that fan.

Now the car has no rattles.

FunkTron

: crazy:: slap:


it's flat out rediuculous. if you have a body in the seat, it is not present.

as soon as you drop that person off and drive away, rattle trap city. still working to figure my rattle out. taking the seat backs off tomorrow to inspect.

Lofa

my car was also quit when i had a person in the seat, now when i removed the fan assembly, the rattle is gone.