S-Class (W221) 2007-2013: S 320 CDI, S 350, S 450, S 500, S 550, S 420 CDI, S 600

Ventilated Seats

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Old Oct 23, 2015 | 05:53 PM
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Question Ventilated Seats

Is it possible to change the factory default setting of the front ventilated seats from "off" to "on".... meaning if you turn them to speed 1, 2 or 3 they stay at the selected speed regardless of if the engine has been restarted?

Is there a hidden service menu in the Command or the ECU with settings such as this that are meant for dealers?

I'm used to driving Japanese luxury brands where the ventilators start in the same setting as you had left them when you turned the engine off. This eliminates the need to press the seat ventilator button every time you start the car. With so many automated features on this car I don't understand why this wasn't the default option.
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Old Oct 23, 2015 | 06:48 PM
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Nope....and honestly I don't know why anybody would want that feature. I've owned 5 Lexus' and none of them ever had the ability to have the seat ventilators come on automatically.


Is it really that difficult to move your hand to the door and push a little button to turn it on?
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Old Oct 23, 2015 | 08:16 PM
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Secondary question... Is there a way to service them/make them better? I feel as if my back ventilators are the only ones on while the butt ones are off.
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Old Oct 23, 2015 | 08:46 PM
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I use them so infrequently that I could never possibly consider this an issue.
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Old Oct 23, 2015 | 10:47 PM
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Originally Posted by DaveW68
Nope....and honestly I don't know why anybody would want that feature. I've owned 5 Lexus' and none of them ever had the ability to have the seat ventilators come on automatically.


Is it really that difficult to move your hand to the door and push a little button to turn it on?
I have had several Lexus LS's and they all returned to their previous setting when the car was started without needing to press the button every time.

Its not that its difficult, its that everything else is automated on the car and I shouldn't have to keep turning on a feature every time I use a $100k car. Do you have to manually turn on the A/C every time you start the car? No. When you live in a hot climate like I do, vented seats are used every day.
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Old Oct 24, 2015 | 01:06 AM
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Originally Posted by mnje350
I use them so infrequently that I could never possibly consider this an issue.
Some of us have a tush that requires a slightly cooler sensation while driving. The results of when this phenomenon occurs is called "Swamp ***"
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Old Oct 24, 2015 | 02:07 AM
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"Some of us have a tush that requires a slightly cooler sensation while driving. The results of when this phenomenon occurs is called "Swamp ***""

Replacing the fans with higher output ones work the best...there was a very lengthy thread about this on either the W210 or W211 forums and I'd suggest you search there. Another trick might be blocking off the back of the drivers seat by the floor with your rear mat and putting the climate control on face/floor helping to direct some cold ac air to the floor where the fans can pick it up...his works well for me on the W222.
Hope this helps.

Last edited by RJC; Oct 25, 2015 at 12:33 AM.
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Old Oct 24, 2015 | 09:45 AM
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Originally Posted by survey1
I have had several Lexus LS's and they all returned to their previous setting when the car was started without needing to press the button every time.

Its not that its difficult, its that everything else is automated on the car and I shouldn't have to keep turning on a feature every time I use a $100k car. Do you have to manually turn on the A/C every time you start the car? No. When you live in a hot climate like I do, vented seats are used every day.

I've had 4 LS's, of which the only ones that had the ventilated seats were my '01 430 and '08 460. Neither of them had the ventilated seats come on automatically after re-starting the car....after they were left on with the previous key cycle.


If you do have a case of "swamp-***" as Ducati so elegantly explained, then you can indeed turn on the seat fans prior to even stepping into the car. Just get near the driver's door, hold down the unlock button on your remote, and allow the windows to roll down. That will automatically activate the fans on full power in both seats before the car is even started and put the A/C on max as soon as you start the car. You don't even have to roll the windows down all the way to turn those fans on.
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Old Oct 24, 2015 | 10:20 AM
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Hmmm, I am gonna have to check this out and see if it does reset when I park the car and then restart.
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Old Oct 24, 2015 | 10:26 AM
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Originally Posted by DaveW68
I've had 4 LS's, of which the only ones that had the ventilated seats were my '01 430 and '08 460. Neither of them had the ventilated seats come on automatically after re-starting the car....after they were left on with the previous key cycle.


If you do have a case of "swamp-***" as Ducati so elegantly explained, then you can indeed turn on the seat fans prior to even stepping into the car. Just get near the driver's door, hold down the unlock button on your remote, and allow the windows to roll down. That will automatically activate the fans on full power in both seats before the car is even started and put the A/C on max as soon as you start the car. You don't even have to roll the windows down all the way to turn those fans on.
I know for a fact that the LS does restart in the same position that it was left in, because I have access to several of them and I went out and tried them from several different model years.......in fact every Lexus I tested with vented seats works this way. None of them shut down after a restart.
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Old Oct 24, 2015 | 07:49 PM
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I bet you could also program your keyless entry to remember your seat setting too. My 2005 Avalon did this. The fob my wife carried remembered her seat settings while mine remembered mine. Thus eliminating the requirement to hold the memory button when driving the car after someone else changed the seat. After 5 years, I have learned to get over this manual adjustment in MB products. Just about every other aspect of these cars, my E350 and the S550, are head and shoulders above anything else I have driven.
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Old Oct 25, 2015 | 04:35 PM
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Originally Posted by Nuru
Hmmm, I am gonna have to check this out and see if it does reset when I park the car and then restart.
Verdammt, das System zurückzusetzen . Offenbar haben die Mercedes-Ingenieure einfach akzeptieren . Nun, wenn Sie brauchen, um es für Sie , wenn Sie vergessen , ihn auszuschalten , werden wir!

Last edited by Nuru; Oct 25, 2015 at 04:38 PM.
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Old Oct 25, 2015 | 06:16 PM
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Originally Posted by Nuru
Verdammt, das System zurückzusetzen . Offenbar haben die Mercedes-Ingenieure einfach akzeptieren . Nun, wenn Sie brauchen, um es für Sie , wenn Sie vergessen , ihn auszuschalten , werden wir!
This did not translate well with google translate. All I got was reset the damn system and something about MB engineers.
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Old Oct 25, 2015 | 10:23 PM
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Originally Posted by mnje350
I bet you could also program your keyless entry to remember your seat setting too.

I have a feeling you are right. I was talking to a friend who knows these cars and he mentioned that he thought you could mate the key with the saved seat setting and it would remember to turn on the vented seats every time the car started. I'll have to look into this.
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Old Oct 25, 2015 | 11:46 PM
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Originally Posted by survey1
I have a feeling you are right. I was talking to a friend who knows these cars and he mentioned that he thought you could mate the key with the saved seat setting and it would remember to turn on the vented seats every time the car started. I'll have to look into this.
Not gonna happen. The heated and ventilated seats are not programmable. You could add an after market auto-starter, which might give you the ability to heat or cool the seats on auto-start.
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Old Oct 26, 2015 | 07:40 AM
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If I use my remote to put the windows down before entering the car the seat coolers turn on for themselves.
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Old Oct 26, 2015 | 09:57 AM
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Originally Posted by triniexr
If I use my remote to put the windows down before entering the car the seat coolers turn on for themselves.
I gave him that suggestion earlier in the thread, but he skipped right over it.
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Old Oct 26, 2015 | 06:01 PM
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Originally Posted by survey1
I have a feeling you are right. I was talking to a friend who knows these cars and he mentioned that he thought you could mate the key with the saved seat setting and it would remember to turn on the vented seats every time the car started. I'll have to look into this.
I was not clear on my post. I meant that I bet you could program your remote to remember your seat position on your Lexus. The MB won't do it.
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Old Oct 27, 2015 | 07:25 AM
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Originally Posted by mnje350
I was not clear on my post. I meant that I bet you could program your remote to remember your seat position on your Lexus. The MB won't do it.
The japanese car makers have driver 1 and driver 2 on their keys. As soon as you unlock the car with your specific key all your own personalized settings are restored, seats, radio station favourites etc.
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Old Oct 28, 2015 | 05:42 PM
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Originally Posted by mnje350
This did not translate well with google translate. All I got was reset the damn system and something about MB engineers.
Basically, damn, those MB engineers, apparently they feel that if you forget to turn it off, then they will turn it off automatically. But if you want it on, you will have to turn it on yourself.

Last edited by Nuru; Oct 28, 2015 at 05:45 PM.
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Old Oct 28, 2015 | 06:09 PM
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Originally Posted by Nuru
Basically, damn, those MB engineers, apparently they feel that if you forget to turn it off, then they will turn it off automatically. But if you want it on, you will have to turn it on yourself.

That is actually the smart way of doing it. Neither of my Lexus LS's with ventilated seats kept the fans on with a key cycle either. I've never heard of any cars doing this....from Germany, Japan, or the US.
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Old Oct 28, 2015 | 08:57 PM
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Originally Posted by Nuru
Basically, damn, those MB engineers, apparently they feel that if you forget to turn it off, then they will turn it off automatically. But if you want it on, you will have to turn it on yourself.
In der Tat , und das macht absolut Sinn .
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Old Oct 29, 2015 | 08:14 AM
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Originally Posted by DaveW68
That is actually the smart way of doing it. Neither of my Lexus LS's with ventilated seats kept the fans on with a key cycle either. I've never heard of any cars doing this....from Germany, Japan, or the US.
The ventilated seats in the LS were horrible though, I could never feel them unless I was wearing shorts. The mercs are a little better. I have to feel them in the new W222, I heard that they actually blow a little harder.
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Old Oct 29, 2015 | 10:55 AM
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Originally Posted by triniexr
I have to feel them in the new W222, I heard that they actually blow a little harder.

This seems to go back to the argument about adding more scents to the auto air freshener in the W222....like hooker or ex-girlfriend scents which may give you the aromatic sensation of being blown harder.
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Old Oct 29, 2015 | 02:00 PM
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After my back surgery I needed some padding to build up the seat a little, and I got a pair of these sheepskin inserts in black mainly to keep the pads in place and hidden.

They did such a nice job of keeping the seat cool in summer and warm in winter I kept them even after I no longer needed the padding. Heat will come through them but the cooling not as much.

They also stopped the wear on the seat skins. www.comfysheep.com

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