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hey guys I have 2001 ml320 and I have to remove the front seats to change out leather seat covers. Anyone know what tools I will need to remove the bolts at the bottom rails? Any advice? Can’t find to much info online and hoping someone here can help.
Just to clarify, are you replacing both the upper and lower portions? If so, why not just swap the entire seat? The upper portion is very difficult to remove, in my opinion, and I've tried it a few times. If you are just changing out the bottom portion, I've done it and it's not hard at all. I would recommend buying the entire seat portion, meaning both the leather and the foam cushion. The reason is that they are held together by metal wires inside that are difficult to work with. When I swapped out my driver's side seat cushion, I removed the front seat from the vehicle, using the Torx socket described below. After you've removed the floor bolts, you'll need to remove one of the seat belt bolts, and then disconnect the seat warmer wire. On the sides of the seat and in the front, the leather is held on by plastic clips. You can flip them off the seat with a flat head screw driver. On on the front sides, the leather has slits in it that attach to plastic screw heads; you just have to be careful not to rip the leather when doing so. On the back, the seat is attached with two plastic bolt type pieces. I use a large pair of pliers to pull the carpeted portion of the seat cover away from the seat frame to have them disengage. You then simply lift up the seat. I've removed the bottom seat cushions from MLs in the junk yard without removing the seat, but it's difficult to reach the side that borders the center console, and it would be difficult to re-attach that side, but I think it's probably do-able.
Another caveat; be careful with seat colors, as there were variations. 2001 gray leather is not the same as 98 and 99. I think the tans are different as well. There was a recall on the seat warmers from later years, and I've come across some seat cushion with substantial burn damage. Overall though, this is a relatively easy fix that will make your ML look much better.
Originally Posted by jay4usc
hey guys I have 2001 ml320 and I have to remove the front seats to change out leather seat covers. Anyone know what tools I will need to remove the bolts at the bottom rails? Any advice? Can’t find to much info online and hoping someone here can help.
@Maj. Dundee Hey there. I have a question. My ML has a torn seat base. I have a parts car with an ok (just starting to split) drivers seat but a perfect passenger seat. Can I swap a passenger seat for a drivers seat? Obviously I’d have to swap the side panels L-R. But will it work?
Barring that, can I simply remove the passenger seat base and put it in my drivers seat?
TIA
David.
ps: Likewise, thanks for the instructions. I have yet to be able to load the eBay WIS I bought two years ago.
Once again, Thanks so much for posting this kind of stuff to the forum. Pulling my parts car front seats today.
ps: On the torx driver front, I needed one I didn’t have yesterday, a 3” long T25 and T27 bit to reach the airbag screws in the steering wheel. (Don’t know what size it actually is, the YouTube video said 27 but I only had a long-ish 25, which worked)
If you are asking can you swap front seats, the answer is NO.
After getting the seats out today, I sussed it out. Because of something on the trans tunnel, the inside legs of the mounting/motor bracket on the drivers seat are shorter than the other three. After unbolting the slide channel for the worm screw block, I couldn’t find a clip or a pin to get the rail off the worm screw. I’ve never seen a seat that didn’t have some secret pin to remove it, but I’ve never worked on an MB 6 way memory seat. I’m going to do some surfing and see what comes up. I may have to completely swap the motor subframes, which I think will be easier than taking the seat apart to swap the leather covers.
In related news, I experimented with getting the seat base cover off without separating the seat from the back. It worked, but whether I could get the other one back on remains to be seen. I have doubts.
Back to the original situation, it looks like there’s 8 T50 bolts holding the motor subframe and rails to the seat proper. It might be easier to swap the whole assembly to make my good passenger seat in my parts car my new driver’s seat in my runner. The hardest part is switching the female seatbealt wiring from the left to right side. It was certainly apparent when I took it apart what order it was designed to be put together in.
From the WIS #38 is the passenger rail, #8 is the driver side. My WIS/EPC foo is weak it took me hours to (not) find what I was looking for. I think both mechanisms were outsourced and MB didn’t make any provisions for taking them apart.
@Maj. Dundee Like I said, my foo is weak tonight. I couldn’t for the life of me find “plug in clips” anywhere.
It’s complicated by the fact that the EPC version I have is in German and I can’t figure out how to find English, but searching the only part# that there are 8 of brings this up in a search.
That’s a little different than the ones that are on it.
10-18-2018, 02:52 AM
