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Do we have any additional information on the 2015 Power EASY-ENTRY? I just placed an order yesterday that will go into the computer tomorrow. I will be putting two car seats in the middle row now (and plan to have this car until my daughter is at least 7) and am seriously considering asking that the Power EASY-ENTRY option be removed.
Do we have any additional information on the 2015 Power EASY-ENTRY? I just placed an order yesterday that will go into the computer tomorrow. I will be putting two car seats in the middle row now (and plan to have this car until my daughter is at least 7) and am seriously considering asking that the Power EASY-ENTRY option be removed.
I have the same problem. My little girl is 1.5 years now. When she moves to booster, the problem should be gone.
FWIW, we did not add the power Easy-Entry with two kids in seats (2.5 yrs & 8 mos) for all the reasons mentioned in this thread after trying one of our seats in the dealer demo.
Considering that the power only works one way and still requires manual intervention I'm quite happy without it. Even without power the 2nd row seats are still very easy to move (IMHO) but just without the gee-whiz factor.
If the seats were powered both directions AND the headrests were a different design I'd consider the power seats on our next GL.
Last edited by cadetdrivr; 06-30-2014 at 08:20 PM.
So, here are a couple of photos. As you can see, the bottoms are above the seat and as far as I can tell, this is really the only way they should work.
So mine do not look like that. They stick out and are not flush with the seat, thus hard to fit a carseat or a booster. My other child who no longer needs one has his head pushed forward by the seat. DANGEROUS! I may have to turn over my lease early as my family cannot comfortably or safely ride in my "family" car. Annoyed!
Attached is a photo of my carseat setup. All carseats are not the same, so other brands may not fit as well. It may be hard to tell, but the second row on this side is reclined slightly so the headrest sits right on top of the carseat.
So the infant/toddler carseats work ok, like yours, but wait until boosters. You have the same headrests as I have. They do not come out and they are not flush with the seat, which creates a problem for the booster situation or even the non booster situation for a child whose head is half on the the headrest. It causes the top of the head to lean forward. Ugh. MB said there is nothing they can do.
I combined two photos previously posted of GL seats with and without the EASY-ENTRY option to clearly illustrate the issue for child safety seats and second row passengers:
Million thanks for your photo. It helped me to understand what I really want. My dealership replaced the headrest for me to manual free of charge.
Now it is my responsibility to push the haedrest down before I push buttong of ez access. I can survive this, because now at least it is fine for my kid.
Thanks to algtrd's instructions from post #152, I fixed the headrests myself so that they will tilt. Here are some extra tips if you want to do it yourself.
On both headrests, pull the tabs towards the right side of the vehicle. Start with the one closest to the front of the headrest (I did it from the second row and pulled towards my left). I'd say I pulled the tab about 3/4 inch before I could get part of the tab off the track and then was able to pull down on the tab to pull it completely off the track. For the back tab, I worked from the cargo area and again, pulled the tab towards the right side of the GL. Your goal to get the tabs off is to get enough of them off the track that they're hooked to so that you can pull the tab down off the tracks. It was not easy and took probably 5-10 minutes per tab to get them off!
Once you get the tabs off, find the part of the wrapper that is velcro'd together, undo it and you can start removing the leather wrapper. You'll have to be careful here or else you'll tear the foam underneath the wrapper like I did with the first headrest. I was more careful with the second one and was able to avoid tearing it. Good luck if you've got sausage fingers. I found sticking my fingers underneath the wrapper on top of the foam while unrolling it from the headrest helped me keep from tearing the foam.
You do not have to remove the wrapper and foam completely off the headrest! Just pull enough of the wrapper off the top of the headrest so that you can stick your fingers underneath the foam towards the front of the headrest and feel the head of the pin. From behind the headrest, knock the pin towards the front a few times with a hammer and a nail setter. If you've unrolled enough of the wrapper off the headrest, you should be able to stick your hand underneath the foam towards the front of the headrest and pull out the pin.
After that, it's a simple matter of rolling the wrapper back and putting the tabs back in. I pushed the tabs back in reverse order of how I pulled them out. Push them straight up into the slots and they'll just snap in and hook back onto their tracks.
There is much on this forum about the EZ Entry head rest issue. I have a GL350 on order and specifically excluded the EZ Entry because of the reputed issues. MB dealers/sales should be better advising customers on this.
Dealer swapped out my auto headrest for manual ones
Hi, I took delivery of a 2015 GL450 with the Easy Entry, and was not aware of the headrest issue until I got home and my 10 year sat in the 2nd row and couldn't find a comfortable position with the headrest. He's too big for a booster and without the booster, the auto headrest would sit on top of his head and was very uncomfortable. A quick Google search found this thread so I called my sales guy who was sympathetic and put me in touch with the Service Director. Within a week, they had contacted MB USA and had gotten replacement parts ordered and today, swapped out the 2nd row outboard seat headrests for the manual ones - all done with a great can-do attitude and no charge to me. Now I can not only adjust the height of the headrest incrementally (instead of just up or down), but can remove it if I needed to for a car seat installation. The manual headrests at the top position also now can fold in and become flush with the seat back which I think is a more comfortable position. They noted the change as a permanent one in the records so there won't be an issue when my lease is up.
Anyway, I thought I'd share this with those of you still struggling with this issue, as there is an easy fix. Only thing I need to remember is to manually lower headrest before using the power seat fold, which I'd gladly do for a safer and more comfortable seating position for my 2nd row passengers.
Hi, I took delivery of a 2015 GL450 with the Easy Entry, and was not aware of the headrest issue until I got home and my 10 year sat in the 2nd row and couldn't find a comfortable position with the headrest. He's too big for a booster and without the booster, the auto headrest would sit on top of his head and was very uncomfortable. A quick Google search found this thread so I called my sales guy who was sympathetic and put me in touch with the Service Director. Within a week, they had contacted MB USA and had gotten replacement parts ordered and today, swapped out the 2nd row outboard seat headrests for the manual ones - all done with a great can-do attitude and no charge to me. Now I can not only adjust the height of the headrest incrementally (instead of just up or down), but can remove it if I needed to for a car seat installation. The manual headrests at the top position also now can fold in and become flush with the seat back which I think is a more comfortable position. They noted the change as a permanent one in the records so there won't be an issue when my lease is up.
Anyway, I thought I'd share this with those of you still struggling with this issue, as there is an easy fix. Only thing I need to remember is to manually lower headrest before using the power seat fold, which I'd gladly do for a safer and more comfortable seating position for my 2nd row passengers.
I hope that Mercedes will be proactive regarding this matter and send out a TSB and give the owners option to swap out the head rests. I have the same issue with my 8 year old not being comfortable with the current head rests. I brought this up to my sale person last week and he told me that they can remove the headrest completely but I will need to sign a waiver. I don't think this is a good solution. I would preferr 1) they exchange the headrest to the manual version. 2) remove the pin to make the headrest swivel flat. I tried option 2 for about 30 mins without success.
what about the kind of kid seat. I have a Britax for the GL and it is a pain in the ***, but have a Diono for my 63 wagon and i will be moving to the Diono for the GL next. Overall safety is at same level, but overall size and build is superior - my son calls the Diono his "racing" seat vs the big bulky Britax. i too have the easy entry and agree it was a challenge to get the kid seat in there.
My 8 year old uses a booster and my 5 year old sits on a Britax car seat. 8 year old gets the headrest below her neck when it is all the way down. When it is all the way up, it pushes up against the top of her head. Very similar to the picture of the boy in the middle pages of this thread. The 5 year old's car seat is pushed forward by the headrest so there is no recline at all, it basically sits up the chair 90 degrees.
It is just a horrible design and hopefully will be addressed.
I have the Britax Pinnacle Clicktight booster which is massive. It's so large that I couldn't fold down the seats (I have it installed on the right side). If I move the booster to the driver side, I can fold down the seats but then I have myself and my child exposed to traffic when I take her in and out of the car. I decided to get a smaller Britax booster (Parkway SGL) without all the padding and harness. After removing the Pinnacle to install the Parkway, I noticed that the side impact padding could be removed from the Pinnacle. I removed the padding on one side of the Pinnacle, reinstalled it, and now my seat folds down (it's still a bit snug though).
Even though I removed the pins so that the headrests would tilt, I didn't have any problem with the headrests pushing the booster too far forward before then. And the booster reclines just fine.
Would it be possible for any of you that successfully removed the pin to post a video showing how it's done? I've tried couple of times and could not get it the two tabs to slide of the rail. Those of us that have been unsuccessful would greatly appreciate it!
Would it be possible for any of you that successfully removed the pin to post a video showing how it's done? I've tried couple of times and could not get it the two tabs to slide of the rail. Those of us that have been unsuccessful would greatly appreciate it!
I second this! I have been unsuccessful at it also, and my dealer wouldn't do it saying it'll void the warranty if he changes it to manual or takes the pin out.
Hi, I took delivery of a 2015 GL450 with the Easy Entry, and was not aware of the headrest issue until I got home and my 10 year sat in the 2nd row and couldn't find a comfortable position with the headrest. He's too big for a booster and without the booster, the auto headrest would sit on top of his head and was very uncomfortable. A quick Google search found this thread so I called my sales guy who was sympathetic and put me in touch with the Service Director. Within a week, they had contacted MB USA and had gotten replacement parts ordered and today, swapped out the 2nd row outboard seat headrests for the manual ones - all done with a great can-do attitude and no charge to me. Now I can not only adjust the height of the headrest incrementally (instead of just up or down), but can remove it if I needed to for a car seat installation. The manual headrests at the top position also now can fold in and become flush with the seat back which I think is a more comfortable position. They noted the change as a permanent one in the records so there won't be an issue when my lease is up.
Anyway, I thought I'd share this with those of you still struggling with this issue, as there is an easy fix. Only thing I need to remember is to manually lower headrest before using the power seat fold, which I'd gladly do for a safer and more comfortable seating position for my 2nd row passengers.
The TSB that is out there for the "clip" removal method is what they performed on your car. I did not know that they also swap out the headrest for the manual headrest. After trying to remove the pin myself again over the weekend, I called thinking I'm just gonna have them do the clip removal so I can just remove the headrest. They told me that they will order me a new headrest to replace the ones that came with the EZ Entry option. Only thing I had to do was sign a waiver saying that Mercedes is not responsible for damage to the seat if I forget to put down the headrest manually before pushing the EZ Entry button. They had the headrest delivered in 2 days, got me in a day later. It is in the shop right now. I will post the before and after pic later.
Here is the new headrest compared to the old. The new one sticks out a tad bit, but as you can see at its highest setting, it sits much higher on the chair then the old headrest.
The old headrest at its highest setting was pushing up on top of my 8 year old's head. This new head rest is at least 3-4 inches higher and does not come close to pushing up on her head. On its lowest setting it sticks out a lot less and feels much more comfortable. I also like the fact that it moves up and down in 4 increments.
Here is the new headrest compared to the old. The new one sticks out a tad bit, but as you can see at its highest setting, it sits much higher on the chair then the old headrest.
The old headrest at its highest setting was pushing up on top of my 8 year old's head. This new head rest is at least 3-4 inches higher and does not come close to pushing up on her head. On its lowest setting it sticks out a lot less and feels much more comfortable. I also like the fact that it moves up and down in 4 increments.
John,
How does the new headrest effect the easy entry function to access the third row?
My dealer has ordered a new set of headrests for me.... Coming all the way from Germany.
The EZ Entry button will still automatically move up the seats. Because the headrests I got stick up higher at the lowest setting than the original, you just have to remember the following 2 things:
1. Make sure the front seats are set forward enough to let the second row seats fold down.
2. Make sure the headrest is pushed down to the lowest setting.
The EZ Entry button will still automatically move up the seats. Because the headrests I got stick up higher at the lowest setting than the original, you just have to remember the following 2 things:
1. Make sure the front seats are set forward enough to let the second row seats fold down.
2. Make sure the headrest is pushed down to the lowest setting.
on our car.. the front seats move automatically and return back to the original spot (my 2014 did not do this).. so I'm wondering if that feature is affected..? I hate having to readjust the seats after being moved.
on our car.. the front seats move automatically and return back to the original spot (my 2014 did not do this).. so I'm wondering if that feature is affected..? I hate having to readjust the seats after being moved.
On my car, the front seats do not move when I push the EZ Entry button. Maybe it has to do with turning on/off the easy exit setting as I have that turned off. It doesn't bother me to do it manually, the driver and passenger seats have memory setting so no big deal.
Question, is anyone out there with kids and using the 2nd row as is with the EZ entry? I have been looking for a GL350 without it and the features I want but I have not been able to find one. We have found some GL's with the features but they have the EZ entry and the local dealer isn't willing to do anything about the headrest such as switching them out or removing the pin. I am getting frustrated and don't feel like waiting 3 months to order. Thoughts?
Question, is anyone out there with kids and using the 2nd row as is with the EZ entry? I have been looking for a GL350 without it and the features I want but I have not been able to find one. We have found some GL's with the features but they have the EZ entry and the local dealer isn't willing to do anything about the headrest such as switching them out or removing the pin. I am getting frustrated and don't feel like waiting 3 months to order. Thoughts?
06-29-2014, 09:25 AM
. I will post the before and after pic later.
