All,

About a year ago, I started feeling an odd, faint "click" in my steering inputs, very infrequently, when doing turns that involved a steering input of 90° or greater. As winter turned to spring and summer and time progressed, these infrequent events started to occur more often. It feels like a small click or uneven spot in the steering as you turn the wheel. In some cases, it's very faintly audible. The odd part was that it started to occur without any particular rhyme or reason - there was no particular set of events that could reliably cause it to happen. Sometimes it happened in 90° turns. Sometimes in reverse. Sometimes at 45° when power was applied. Most often, nothing at all. And on the highway, you could drive 200 miles without feeling it. The sound could even happen several times per turn if you kept turning the wheel. It was a truly frustrating experience, because a steering mechanism shouldn't have that feeling at all, especially a precision steering assembly. The fact that the sound wasn't metallic and couldn't be felt on the floorboard seemed to rule out anything in the rack or front end. And, sound recordings with my phone placed on the steering column seemed to indicate that it was in the column or higher.

My first trip to the dealer with the problem seemed to solve it, at first. One of their finest techs took apart the wheel, and the steering column, and lubricated everything. Furthermore, he had discovered a wiring harness that was out of place, and clipped it back in. They asked me to check out the car again, and the noise and feeling was completely gone. I drove the car for a week before the sound and feeling started coming back. Needless to say, the feeling of something fishy in steering wasn't particularly confidence-inspiring.

My second trip to the dealership revealed the problem. The tech (one of 25 MB certified diagnostic techs in the country) took out my airbag and pointed to its mounting plate. There are three screws that hold the mounting plate in place that also allow the plate to move inwards, activating the horn. The airbag clips on to the mounting plate. The mounting plate slides on three bushings through which the mounting screws go. As it turns out, the bushings allow a fraction of a millimeter of movement laterally. Because the airbag is quite heavy, in certain steering situations (90° turns!), the entire airbag and mounting plate assembly would slide a fraction of a millimeter and bump from one side of the bushing to another against the mounting screws. Believe it or not, this created the unnerving "clicking" sensation and associated sound. And, because the airbag had been removed in the first service visit, the sound had disappeared until the right conditions had reappeared.

I drove the car around the lot without the airbag installed (it was reinstalled moments later), and the steering felt perfect, no clicks or clunks. Apparently, a week after my first visit, another W213 came in with the same problem. So, the dealership has ordered five new airbag mounting plates along with a repair kit for cars that may come in with this issue in the future. It's amazing how a tiny movement of an airbag as the wheel is moved can cause such an uncomfortable issue. I'm writing this post in case you've felt the same thing in your steering and have had difficulty replicating the issue for your dealer, or if the dealer hasn't been able to locate the problem. You're not crazy! It does happen, and the fix is simpler than you might imagine! I'm waiting for the part to arrive, but have also been able to replicate the movement by wiggling the airbag laterally back and forth. If there are any changes after the new part comes in and it's not resolved for some reason, I'll be sure to post back. However, for now, I think the issue is solved!

 

Thanks for sharing!

 

A quick update - my dealer ended up replacing the entire steering wheel. Because I have a 2019 model, it has the updated steering wheel, and so apparently replacing the airbag retaining bracket required replacing the entire wheel. The controls and paddle shifters were transferred over from the old wheel.

Since the repair, the click/clunk feeling is completely gone, and the airbag is now solidly retained - it doesn't wiggle and click back and forth when you try to move it laterally. And, the fix comes with that "new steering wheel" feel!

 

I'm pretty sure that my 2017 E300 has the same issue.

Does anyone know of a bulletin for this problem?

I'm on a CPO warranty, would it cover the fix as described in the post?

 

OP, sorry to bother you but do you mind sharing us that video that contains the clicking sound you mentioned, I am trying to diagnose such sound and to hear if it is the same or similar to what I experienced on a family member's vehicle. Thank you.

 

https://mbworld.org/forums/e-class-w...ml#post8348443

 

Sounds like that is not the same sound my family member's vehicle exhibits since it is intermittent and doesn't actually due to the knock or click constantly as shown in the videos, but thank you as always konigstiger.

 

No need to change any parts, guys.. It's enought to disassemble steering wheel, i mean:
1. remove airbag (see youtube many movies how to do it)
2. unscrew 3 metal big screws at the metal plate wich is pushing when you pushing the horn , i mean remove metal plate for horn
3. under this metal plate there are 3 pcs of metal springs for car horn pushing
4. you need just stretch these springs pretty decent and put all parts back together
5. i have resolved this problem in my E63s amg 2017, 92.000km, steering wheel was slightly clicking when turn about 90 degrees left or right but not always..