Rear Seats
 

Received my W213 last week, but it's got fixed rear seats.


Anybody got any experience of retrofitting split folding?


Thanks


Gav

To put it simply it cant be done easily if at all. The bulkhead beam is different since the locking mechanism is an integral to the beam rather than something you can just bolt on. Same thing with the seat back latches, you would need an entirely new seatback. What country are you in? I had no clue the car was available with a solid rear seat anywhere.

I had no clue either.


I've bought the car from Mercedes at one year old and never thought to check whether the back seats folded or not, but they appear to be a fixed back.


I'm in the UK


Gav

The chassis and bodywork are the same, a foldable rear seat is a bolt on feature, but it will not come cheap.

It's very common for saloon cars in the UK to have fixed rear seats, that could be common in Europe too. Hatchbacks are very popular here and have been for over 30 years. Typically, if you want practicality and ability to move things, you get a hatch (or an estate/wagon if you moved wardrobes a lot!) and every one of them has folding seats. But a saloon is the "grown up" car and a fixed rear seat was the norm and distinguished then from a hatchback. Certainly years back you ended up with more cabin noise if you had a folding rear seat as the rear solid bulkhead had to be cut out. So saloons, often bought for their superior luxury (or at least the image of luxury), wouldn't come with folding seats I think having fold down seats made people think less of a saloon years back. So even today it's typically an option. Very different market compared to America.

I'm not overly fussed mine is fixed. The boot is long enough for most things and anything longer is likely to be deep too so wouldn't fit through such a low opening (the wife has a hatchback and that's the mini load lugger in the house).