MB-Tex in Ash suffering from Yellow Fever :-(
07-31-2005, 03:56 AM
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'07 Lexus RX400h
MB-Tex in Ash suffering from Yellow Fever :-(
Hi,
we have just had time to digest our "M-Klasse Experience" at the former US Bitburg Airbase.
An excellent event (a detailed report will follow later) including on-and off-road driving - it's truly amazing what the W164 can do, even in the hands of not too expert drivers.
However, ALL Ash Appearence Pack equipped W164's at the event suffered from this "yellow fever" problem:
The MB-Tex vertical surfaces of the 1/3 part of the rear seat were all yellow, some a little less, but still unacceptable - and also the center rear armrest was yellow on several cars. Odd enough, there was one partial Ash leather 350 present which did not have the defect.
I pointed this out to several of the MB people present at the event, and they seemed duly concerned.
One Appearance Pack-equipped 350 had stains of exactly the same yellow color which seemed to be ordinary glue stains - mishaps during production that should never make it as far as being seen by the customer.
These yellow discolorings are all in places where a MB-Tex surface faces a textile surface (to eliminate squeaks, the W164 does not have two MB-Tex surfaces facing another). I guess that in the confined space between the seat halves and in the cavity where the rear armrest retracts, some kind of gas forms during shipment which makes the Ash MB-Tex turn yellow. If you mostly drive with your rear seat unoccupied, and the headrests lowered, another "yellow fever" area might appear at the top of the rear seat backrests.
An immediate remedy could be to avoid close textile/MB-Tex contact during shipping (because maybe the various materials just need to "gas off") - but it's a bit complicated to maintain during the entire transportation period.
Just in case someone at the shipping preparation unit at Tuscaloosa reads this, this is my idea for immediate action: The bigger 2/3 rds of the rear seat are left as is, but the armrest should be opened, and the headrests should be raised to max height to avoid contact between their textile insides and the upper part of the seat back. For the smaller 1/3rd of the rear seat: Raise the seat cushion, and fold forward the seat back 45 degrees WITH THE HEADREST RAISED, making sure that in the process there's no textile/MB-Tex contact.
Of course everyone with this problem will get new seat covers installed by MB, but I think some action needs to be taken right now to avoid another major recall.
None of the charcoal or tan leather/MB-Tex equipped cars showed similar signs, even on closer inspection.
As our Ash interior vehicle is already very close to production we are understandably quite worried obout this. I'll go through my files of internal DCX e-mail addresses from Monday and see what can be done.
Cheers (but apart from this, it was still a very nice experience!!)
Birger
we have just had time to digest our "M-Klasse Experience" at the former US Bitburg Airbase.
An excellent event (a detailed report will follow later) including on-and off-road driving - it's truly amazing what the W164 can do, even in the hands of not too expert drivers.
However, ALL Ash Appearence Pack equipped W164's at the event suffered from this "yellow fever" problem:
The MB-Tex vertical surfaces of the 1/3 part of the rear seat were all yellow, some a little less, but still unacceptable - and also the center rear armrest was yellow on several cars. Odd enough, there was one partial Ash leather 350 present which did not have the defect.
I pointed this out to several of the MB people present at the event, and they seemed duly concerned.
One Appearance Pack-equipped 350 had stains of exactly the same yellow color which seemed to be ordinary glue stains - mishaps during production that should never make it as far as being seen by the customer.
These yellow discolorings are all in places where a MB-Tex surface faces a textile surface (to eliminate squeaks, the W164 does not have two MB-Tex surfaces facing another). I guess that in the confined space between the seat halves and in the cavity where the rear armrest retracts, some kind of gas forms during shipment which makes the Ash MB-Tex turn yellow. If you mostly drive with your rear seat unoccupied, and the headrests lowered, another "yellow fever" area might appear at the top of the rear seat backrests.
An immediate remedy could be to avoid close textile/MB-Tex contact during shipping (because maybe the various materials just need to "gas off") - but it's a bit complicated to maintain during the entire transportation period.
Just in case someone at the shipping preparation unit at Tuscaloosa reads this, this is my idea for immediate action: The bigger 2/3 rds of the rear seat are left as is, but the armrest should be opened, and the headrests should be raised to max height to avoid contact between their textile insides and the upper part of the seat back. For the smaller 1/3rd of the rear seat: Raise the seat cushion, and fold forward the seat back 45 degrees WITH THE HEADREST RAISED, making sure that in the process there's no textile/MB-Tex contact.
Of course everyone with this problem will get new seat covers installed by MB, but I think some action needs to be taken right now to avoid another major recall.
None of the charcoal or tan leather/MB-Tex equipped cars showed similar signs, even on closer inspection.
As our Ash interior vehicle is already very close to production we are understandably quite worried obout this. I'll go through my files of internal DCX e-mail addresses from Monday and see what can be done.
Cheers (but apart from this, it was still a very nice experience!!)
Birger
07-31-2005, 11:06 AM
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I don't remember any brand using a glue to hold the outside layer to the foam. The cushion is held down with the lock on clip underneath, that's it. At times, brands put velcro at parts of the cushion where it folds in.
This looks to be a problem of the outside layer (MB-Tex) itself but it's mostly formatted cloth. Unless the dye is coming off or smudging. This would leave the orginal color to show. But that's almost impossible to do unless it wasn't dyed properly. The dye itself is from colored powder.
This looks to be a problem of the outside layer (MB-Tex) itself but it's mostly formatted cloth. Unless the dye is coming off or smudging. This would leave the orginal color to show. But that's almost impossible to do unless it wasn't dyed properly. The dye itself is from colored powder.
