Armrest won't go down

[racemor]

I'm in day number 3 with my nee-to-me '94 E500 and have done "dumb thing #1", of which many more are to come I'm sure.

I put the driver's seat armrest up this afternoon and now it won't go down. Is there some sort of release or something that I have not found? I checked the manual but did not see anything.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Glen]

Congrats on your new ride!

This is an easy one and don't feel bad as the release is not entirely evident. On the passenger side of the armrest, you'll see a round plastic disc that looks like a cover for something. Press on it and it will release the armrest.

 

[gsxr]

There's a button on the side (large black round thingy) - press that inward. Wooops, looks like Glen was typing faster than I was...

 

[racemor]

Woo-Hoo! Thanks Glen and Dave, that did it.

Now, on to "dumb thing #2." Not sure what that will be yet.

 

[gerryvz]

Another common problem that new owners often come up with has to do with the rear sun shade. There are three things you should know about:

• Sometimes when it is extended upward all the way, it won't go down on its own and requires a "helper" to push it along before it "catches" and then goes down. The solution is to extend it so that the vertical support bars aren't quite in the vertical position, but are at a 5-10-degree angle. It's still fully extended, but the two arms don't totally lock in the "up" position.
• When you lower the sun shade, often it won't totally lock down into the fully retracted position. Again, you may have to give it a slight "push" downward once it's all the way down, to lock it into the slot. This doesn't affect the up-and-down operation of the sun shade, but it just something to know about. Which leads to the third point.....
• There is a little microswitch in the slot in the rear deck that senses when the sun shade is fully retracted and pushed down into its slot. If you raise the rear headrests into the upright/vertical position (i.e. if you have rear passenger(s)) then you can use the dashboard switch to retract the headrests into the horizontal position. They are electro-vacuum controlled. The electro piece is gated by that microswitch in the rear deck being activated by the sun shade being pressed down. Meaning.....unless sun shade is down and switch depressed, headrests won't fall back down into the horizontal (rest) position. A lot of people end up thinking there are problems with the headrest retraction system, when it's just a matter of the shade being pressed into the down position in the rear deck.

Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Gerry

 

[racemor]

Thanks Gerry. Unfortunaly the rear shade is inoperable. Only one side goes up and it does not bring the screen with it. I'm trying to decide on fixing or replacing.

I'll be starting an owner thread soon and will put a few questions in there.

 

[gsxr]

I would get the rear shade fully retracted, then disconnect the wires at either the rear, or at the switch up front. We very rarely ever use the rear roller blind... and in our cars with dark window tint, we pretty much never use it. Not worth the cost of replacement, IMO.

 

[racemor]

The good thing is that it's down and looks fine. You can't tell there's a problem until you try and raise it. So no rush at this point.

 

[J-Sauce]

Mine worked when I got the car, but is now stuck in the UP position. Which is fine with me, being in hot-weathered SoCal. I just need to make sure no one lifts the head rests, or they'll never go back down!

 

[Storybook]

Interesting...was just searching for threads to address an inoperable rear headrest switch. Headrest are in the up position and the switch doesn't lower them. My sunshade works perfectly though. Not sure where the microswitch that gerryvz is mentioning is located. Does someone have a picture of it and do I need to physically activate it? Thanks for any help.

 

[gsxr]

Interesting...was just searching for threads to address an inoperable rear headrest switch. Headrest are in the up position and the switch doesn't lower them. My sunshade works perfectly though. Not sure where the microswitch that gerryvz is mentioning is located. Does someone have a picture of it and do I need to physically activate it? Thanks for any help.

Make sure the engine is running when you press the rear headrest switch, and hold the switch for a few seconds.

 

[gerryvz]

Interesting...was just searching for threads to address an inoperable rear headrest switch. Headrest are in the up position and the switch doesn't lower them. My sunshade works perfectly though. Not sure where the microswitch that gerryvz is mentioning is located. Does someone have a picture of it and do I need to physically activate it? Thanks for any help.

The microswitch is a little switch that is in the side of the channel that the retracted sun-shade goes down into. The shade MUST be fully retracted (push it down by hand to make sure it is activated) so that the microswitch is depressed, before the headrest switch in the dashboard will work. As GSXR says, the motor should be running when the headrest switch is pressed.