How do you remove power seats without power?
 

Hey homies,

Bought a water-damaged W212 E63 AMG and the front seats both won't move. How the hell can I get to the bolts to take them out? There must be some mechanism because the electrics are not working period.

Anyone have ideas?

Can you investigate and find the +12v in for the motor and system post-SAM... it is probably the biggest cable in the system and just posi-tap in there?

Just thinking outloud here

Perhaps adding 12v into the system would allow the motor to move via controls

Water damaged as in flooded?
The seats will prove to be the least of your worries...

Don't worry about the water damage. I just need to take the seats out.

If you power the rest of the car the seats don't move? Or you can't power the rest of the car?

I've jumped power directly to seat motors to remove them on cars at the junk yard or similar. I had a new S65 with jammed seat motors that I had to unbolt and remove the motor, then turn the cables by hand until the seat moved forward enough to expose the rear bolts. That's basically your two options.

+1

The seat back and headrests work but not forward and back and up and down.

Still haven't solved this. Any help would be appreciated because I'm kinda really stuck.

What all have you tried?

These methods didn't work?

I can't reach the cables at all, the seat is all the way down and forward. I can undo the rear bolts for the seat but not front.

If it's all the way forward you should be able to get to the motors from the rear seat area. I haven't tried personally on a 211 but it works on many other similar cars. Not easy or fun, but water damage never is.

Safe to assume you want to reuse the seats, but at some point do you just tear the sh*t out of them until you reach the bolts?

The rails are over the bolts, you would have to really destroy everything. Not as simple as just removing the cushions.

On the newer 204/212, the lower cushion unbolts and comes out, makes it easy to reach the motors if they are stuck. I don't think the 211 has that though.

How much of the car are you saving, maybe a hole saw up from the bottom to take out the mounting points?

+1 for thinking outside the box or car in this case

I want the chassis so can't cut from under.

I'm gonna try the 12V tap and the cushion removal thing. Thanks for the help guys.

check to motor under the seats , its probably dead, it pulls out, so fairly easy to test when out, there will be two rods that come out of it which are removable, and move the seat back and forward. Once you get the motor running you are there.

Is the other seat working?

if so you can take the motor out of that and transfer it to the other one.

the motor pulls out so you can transfer to another 211 and test it there

hope that helps

From the sounds of it, this remove motor and rods fix so the seat just slides back and forth is what he is after...

I was thinking too, "what if motor dies, how do you replace if you have to move the seat to get at the motor..."

Didnt make sense, and there had to be a way... good on ya friend for contribution

Just to clarify since I didn't update this thread. I ended up taking the seat bottom out, which you can do on the W212 at least by undoing a Torx bolt on a clip holding the seat bottom on each side at the front. Try to put your phone and take a photo or use a mirror to find it, it's one on each side, very easy to remove. It will still be attached by wiring which you can undo or cut and solder later if you're desperate and in a hurry.

The I tried putting power on the motor (the motor can be powered by a 12V car battery by putting the wires on the big metal things after you pull the connector, there are 4 in total of those electric prongs, 2 small and 2 big, I found that the big ones take the power). It didn't work, the motor was dead because of the water damage so I brought an identical motor I had at home, slipped the dead one off (don't unbolt the holder, just slip it off, the thing that turns slips in like an allen key and it's a flexible cable) and slipped the good one on. I used a 12V battery on the big prongs and it worked, to go the other way just reverse polarity (put the negative and positive opposite way).

After that I got to the bolts off and the seat off :D

PS. Be very careful when you're putting power to the motor not to get your hand or what ever caught in the seat mechanism, it is VERY power as said before and could cut your finger off no problem.

Thank you so much to all the suggestions and input guys, I really appreciate your help. This kind of feedback and sharing is what makes the forum great.

MAKE MBWORLD GREAT AGAIN!! Lol jkz :p: :bow:

Kinda late but I had to do this on my passenger CLK 55 which is a bit smaller than the E-class.
I worked patiently and dis assembled the entire seat piece by piece until I could finally get to the tracks and motors.
It was 30^ outside so I re-assembled inside the house. HAR

Cheers, Gator