jay024

hi all. my steering wheel has stopped going up or down. I have tried doing the youtube method of forcing it up and down with my leg pressing etc but did not work. is there a guide or anything else i can do to get this fixed?
2015 e300

thanks in advance

CaliBenzDriver

Go ahead use a scanner to collect a list of faults.

Check fuses at F-SAM who is charge of this convenience feature.

The telescopic steering column convenience entry use 2 electric motors that have an abnormally hard life.
The factory mechanical adjustment are poorly made and need to be redone.

Chevota

Manually push the lower lever and a split second later hit up on the wheel. If you wait too long it'll time out

CaliBenzDriver

if you get the steering column going by chance...
get it to your driving position followed by
be sure to disable "convenience entry" through Settings menu.

Problem solved else fix column for a great opportunity to meet two solderless VIP nodes: the SCM and King-pin of awesome CAN troubles:
The amazing EIS Module.

pierrejoliat

It gets bound up in the fully raised position and on occasion the fully lowered position, there is a double nut on a threaded rod under the dash that needs to be given 1/4 turn of more slack, then it stops getting stuck, at least for mine after I did it, now it's been working fine with the entry/exit feature enabled. It did get stuck maybe 3-4 times over my nine years of ownership, the banging on the wheel thing does work eventually, sometimes it takes quite a few tries, but I couldn't get it to move the last time it happened so I broke down and loosed the two jamb-nuts. I found the procedure here on this forum, actually, maybe it was an old post by Cali? Likely the one he posted above?

CaliBenzDriver

Personally I don't advise anyone to bang the steering wheel too hard too many times, don't!

The steering wheel electronic is built to notice abuse to the point one may guess the clunky column exists to be trigger.
​​​​​​
... anyways when in doubt scan to collect rare clues.

BenzV12

I would not bang the steering wheel either . Those things are electronic and highly sensitive and it might get the things worse if you have lane assist or other driver assistant systems as well

CaliBenzDriver

I know we like the steering wheel to work the way we are used to having it move... It's upsetting when it wants to quit... here is a quick insider look at the fragile steering wheel electronic ...


optical position encoder and unsoldered pins


naked optical sensor and pins


steering wheel controller... 😅


steering wheel side buttons

Take it easy with luck
🙂
When I fixed that my car noticeably started to drive planted straight on the freeway instead of the electric rack hunting left and right unstable.

A few of the MB systems suffer from issues that lock out best performance like driving straight, not burning oil, not killing batteries.... European luxury.

By the time cars are all electrical... people will need to fix new things that are being tested right now! The old "Balance shaft" game will be replaced by HVAC weaknesses.

Chevota

If you dont want to hit it then push it up. I dont think itll work as well but its an option. So push, click down, then let go of it. Repeat and push harder as needed. Often you can simply push the down lever and itll work, might need to do it many times. Mine sticks a couple times a year.

DubVBenz

I think a common problem with these adjustable steering wheels and the convenience entry thing (I have it on my W211 as well) is that people will not wait to push off from them when exiting a vehicle while it's still moving. If I need to use the steering wheel as leverage when getting out of my car, I wait until it's stopped moving so I don't fight the motor. I haven't had any failures on my w211 or w212 and attribute it to that. I'm also only about 200lbs, so I'm not putting a ton of weight on it, however I used to be 350 for the majority of my ownership of the W211 and it never failed either.

pierrejoliat

Yes, I agree Dub, I had to learn to stop doing this even at 175 pounds, my wife does it as well at 120 lbs, After I adjsted the jamb nuts on the threaded rod I had no issues so far in the last 18 months. I also never had this issue in any of my 8 previous Benz's

CaliBenzDriver

Pierre is that the contraption that helped your column tilt normally ?


how many issues can this pack ?

The big question is how loose is too loose... that is why I opted in for the Grand-Tour - I don't regret the journey one bit to encounter amazing EIS... A lot of things got exponentially better.

pierrejoliat

Yes Cali, the two jamb nuts at each end of the plastic block, I backed them of just a little, less than a quarter turn on the lower nut in the picture, turned back on the easy exit feature and have had no issues for the last 18 months or so, I assume when the wheel went all the way up, that black plastic block was binding up too tightly at the stop.

CaliBenzDriver

It is the second time in recent past my "convenience entry" develops a fault. ​​​​​
In december I realized my steering wheel was no longer moving up 'n down automatically with my front door...


TILT adjustment nut...

I got under the dash and loosened the nut and adjusted the freeplay. Done!

Then one month later, again!
Now what?
Same thing, the nut quicky got tighter by operating the convenience. The repeat calls for a different fix.

This time I lubricated the nut with dry-lube spray so it has more friction on its shaft than the black plastic piece it is operating.

It this happen one more time I will clean the assembly with brake cleaner then Epoxy glue it to the nut.

crawling under dash: column

The one thing I still can never do is.... bang on my steering wheel. 😳
When the nut gets itself tight, the motor simply can not move it.
✌️

hecdog

This happened to me once and instead of banging on it, I moved the lever as if to adjust the wheel all the way up, then when I heard the motor sort of stop (it clicked slightly) I pulled hard downward in the steering wheel while moving the lever down and the mechanism started working again. Then I turned off easy exit.

however, just yesterday I picked up my 2014 wagon from th dealer and the steering wheel was stuck in the upmost position. so I complained that they broke my steering wheel (lol) and I just took it this morning and they fixed it while I waited. They said it was a simple software fix. Here’s the invoice attached.

go figure 🤷🏽


🤷🏽

CaliBenzDriver

The relearning is not even necessary once the nut is loose. I have done the relearning the first time, not even second time.

This free of charge relearn procedure is not fixing the hardware binding. This module does not get disrupted into forgetting its learned positions.

At any rate hopefully the repair will last a while.

The real fix is to have a counter-nut to hold position or epoxy glue it with JB-WELD. Cheaper than $3G column, right?


LISTEN TO TILT: now my tilt sounds like butter, super smooth, fast easy no laboring... lubing one nut only maybe good enough after all

hecdog

Can you explain a bit about how the re-learning actually fixes it, even if only temporarily?

how is a hardware problem fixed by a software process?

thanks!

CaliBenzDriver

seat module says no mo' convenience

These excellent questions i dont have the answer for as I can not believe doing adaptation have a chance to fix a tight tilt mechanism.
​​​​​​
Nor do i think this controller can forget its location to need relearn. The seat controller itself is reliable besides harness.

I think the dealer tech.gave you a free steering wheel bang procedure. All 5 secs of it.

My chassis mostly has good clean GND.
One way possible to loose position is with marginal GND. If this happens again soon, keep GND's in mind.