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Seat Cooling fans shut off after 3 1/2 minutes

Old Jul 10, 2018 | 09:09 PM
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Seat Cooling fans shut off after 3 1/2 minutes

Just looking for a little input from the group. Now that summer has finally arrived here in Oregon, I've been doing everything possible to keep my triple black wagon cool. I've noticed that the seat cooling seemed to be pretty poor, always an issue with Mercedes, but this was particularly bad. Today I had a few minutes to investigate, and you can very clearly hear the fans come on when you push the button, but after 3 1/2 to 3 3/4 minutes, (it varies, I've tested it multiple times) the fans go silent. This is for both the driver and passenger seat, incidentally. To make matters worse, the fans will not restart by cycling the button, I have to cycle the entire car.

Has as anyone else had a similar issue?

thanks
Michael

Last edited by pb12; Jul 10, 2018 at 09:13 PM.
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Old Jul 10, 2018 | 09:13 PM
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No problems with mine (I have the Perf Seats) but on a side note the cooling isnt really that good.
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Old Jul 10, 2018 | 09:24 PM
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Originally Posted by Vic55
No problems with mine (I have the Perf Seats) but on a side note the cooling isnt really that good.
Can’t speak of the E63, as I haven’t received mine yet, but in my Audi S6 it seems that the ventilated seats are just that....ventilated. A fan blowing cabin air. In my wife’s Land Rover the seats are clearly cooled, to the point if you run in a store for a drink, they are frigid when you get back.
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Old Jul 10, 2018 | 09:26 PM
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My c has almost useless ventilated seats. At the cost of these cars Mercedes needs to start pumping cool air into the seats. Hell my friends Chevy does that and it's awesome !
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Old Jul 10, 2018 | 09:27 PM
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I don't know if your issue is normal or not, but I do know that the ventilated seat system will reverse flow of the fans at some point. When you first turn them on, they are supposed to pull air from you and out of the seat, to help dry you, then they switch after a pre-determined time to blow (assumingly cooled by the A/C) cabin air to you. Maybe, in this case, you are hearing them running in one direction but not the other?

Complete guess on my part, and you may well have an issue, I just wanted to offer a little insight.
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Old Jul 10, 2018 | 09:30 PM
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Originally Posted by ItalianJoe1
I don't know if your issue is normal or not, but I do know that the ventilated seat system will reverse flow of the fans at some point. When you first turn them on, they are supposed to pull air from you and out of the seat, to help dry you, then they switch after a pre-determined time to blow (assumingly cooled by the A/C) cabin air to you. Maybe, in this case, you are hearing them running in one direction but not the other?

Complete guess on my part, and you may well have an issue, I just wanted to offer a little insight.
that is interesting. It is very obvious when the fans shut off, this is not the usual "German cars seat cooling sucks". Thanks for the idea.

M
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Old Jul 10, 2018 | 09:32 PM
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Are the seat fans tied to the HVAC fans? Does everything run “hard” for 3.5 minutes to cool the car is to temp them slow down?
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Old Jul 10, 2018 | 09:34 PM
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Originally Posted by Vic55
No problems with mine (I have the Perf Seats) but on a side note the cooling isnt really that good.
I'm glad you said that cause I was thinking the same thing.

It's actually embarrassing how poor the ventilation is in the seats, almost useless.

First world problem sure, but if you're going to bother to have them as an option at least make them functional.
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Old Jul 10, 2018 | 09:40 PM
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Originally Posted by soulsea
I'm glad you said that cause I was thinking the same thing.

It's actually embarrassing how poor the ventilation is in the seats, almost useless.

First world problem sure, but if you're going to bother to have them as an option at least make them functional.
Yeah Serge its true they actually suck LOL.... conversely my RS7 with the optional seat package had amazing cooling. I tested them with a sport coat on during a higher temp day and man my back sweat was limited LOL.
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Old Jul 10, 2018 | 09:52 PM
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Originally Posted by kcjonz
Are the seat fans tied to the HVAC fans? Does everything run “hard” for 3.5 minutes to cool the car is to temp them slow down?
no, I don't think so. Main hvac cooling fan speed does not change. Also, this happens with the seats irrespective of hvac fan speed setting, including it being off entirely.

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Old May 26, 2020 | 07:21 PM
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No answer here to the OP question... anyone?
FWIW, my G wagon ventilated seat doesn’t always seam to run. Sometimes you can hear the fan, sometimes you can’t... is this normal?
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Old May 26, 2020 | 07:34 PM
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Originally Posted by Surge
No answer here to the OP question... anyone?
FWIW, my G wagon ventilated seat doesn’t always seam to run. Sometimes you can hear the fan, sometimes you can’t... is this normal?
Yes, that's absolutely normal behaviour for Mercedes.
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Old May 26, 2020 | 07:42 PM
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Originally Posted by dav461
Yes, that's absolutely normal behaviour for Mercedes.
Thanks. I did see another thread describing how the fan is on a timer and also slows when the car speed slows. But when the timer reduces the output, shouldn’t the 3 blue lights also switch to 2, then 1? That’s what the heated seats do.
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Old May 27, 2020 | 09:02 AM
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Originally Posted by Surge
shouldn’t the 3 blue lights also switch to 2, then 1? That’s what the heated seats do.
I have never seen such behaviour. In my opinion ventilation fan is directly dependant on temp sensor. I wanted to see in depth one day how that is coded, but gave up on this idea. Maybe when summer comes, I will look into it, as I am pretty sure it can be set to different values (sensor+car speed)
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Old May 27, 2020 | 09:04 AM
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It is normal......it's just cabin air not cool air.....unless the air in your cabin is cool. Did they recently change these to pump COLD air?
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Old May 27, 2020 | 05:18 PM
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100 degrees here today (Bay Area, go figure), and I just had the seat cooling fans on for at least 15 minutes...stayed on the whole time with no change in speed. It was not "cool" air by any means, but it blew nonetheless.
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Old May 29, 2020 | 06:49 PM
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I've had ventilated seats in almost every MB car over the last 15+ years. Never had a problem with them shutting off, somethings wrong.

I agree with others, not really "cool" seats just ventilated. If the car has strong AC and the windows are up then you will feel the benefits otherwise not.
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Old May 29, 2020 | 06:59 PM
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Originally Posted by places
I've had ventilated seats in almost every MB car over the last 15+ years. Never had a problem with them shutting off, somethings wrong.

I agree with others, not really "cool" seats just ventilated. If the car has strong AC and the windows are up then you will feel the benefits otherwise not.
They do shut off in certain cases, at least on some MB models. Another thread covered this. When the car speed drops below 6 kph the fan shuts off.There are other instances where the fan speed will decrease automatically.
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Old May 29, 2020 | 07:15 PM
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Originally Posted by Surge
They do shut off in certain cases, at least on some MB models. Another thread covered this. When the car speed drops below 6 kph the fan shuts off.There are other instances where the fan speed will decrease automatically.
Interesting. So once they shut off they do not turn on automatically again? Driver needs to turn them on again manually? Why is this?
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Old May 29, 2020 | 07:19 PM
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Originally Posted by places
Interesting. So once they shut off they do not turn on automatically again? Driver needs to turn them on again manually? Why is this?
They come back on automatically. The cases seem to be:
• when car speed drops below 6 kph, the ventilated seats drop from stage 2 or 3 to 1; when car speed exceeds 9 kph, the fan speed returns to the set value
• after 8 min on stage 3, the fan drops to stage 2; after 10 min on stage 2, it drops to stage 1; after 20 min on stage 1, it turns off. What I don't understand is why the blue lights don't change to reflect the fan speed. On the heated seats, the red lights do turn off over time.
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Old May 29, 2020 | 08:31 PM
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Originally Posted by Surge
They come back on automatically. The cases seem to be:
• when car speed drops below 6 kph, the ventilated seats drop from stage 2 or 3 to 1; when car speed exceeds 9 kph, the fan speed returns to the set value
• after 8 min on stage 3, the fan drops to stage 2; after 10 min on stage 2, it drops to stage 1; after 20 min on stage 1, it turns off. What I don't understand is why the blue lights don't change to reflect the fan speed. On the heated seats, the red lights do turn off over time.
Probably a potential battery drain.
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