MB Medic Mercedes-Benz Repair Guides, Service, How To DIY
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Are you having problems with the sun visor on your Mercedes-Benz? Is it stuck in place, making it hard to pull down or push back up? A common problem with Mercedes sun visors is that they won’t fold back properly when pushed up. You may notice that the sun visor is not folded all the way. There is no way to adjust the sun visor, but there is one trick worth trying. In many cases, it may fix your sun visor problem. The sun visor on the driver’s side tends to wear out faster, but the passenger side sun visor may be hard to operate because it rarely gets used.
The solution to a sun visor that will not fold back
You can try fixing the sun visor yourself by lubricating the shaft inside the sun visor. To do this, you will need a lubricant. We have found that spraying penetrating oil works quite well. Liquid Wrench Penetrating Oil works better and lasts longer than WD-40 in such applications, but you can use either one.
Extend the sun visor shaft out and spray the lubricant on the shaft. Be careful not to spray the sun visor itself. Push the shaft back into the survivor and rotate it a few times. Pull the shaft out and reapply the lubricant. After you perform this a couple of times, your sun visor should move smoothly. Install the sun visor back on and notice how the sun visor returns to its intended position.
Mask the headliner before you spray anything
This is the part that turns a free fix into an expensive one. Penetrating oil atomizes, and the visor pivot sits an inch from the headliner, so a casual squirt upward puts a fine mist straight onto the fabric above it. Oil on a headliner does not clean off. It wicks into the foam backing, spreads outward as a dark halo over the following days, and the only real remedy is a new headliner, which costs many times what a new visor would have.
So do it the slow way. Tape a sheet of paper or a plastic bag across the headliner around the pivot before the can comes out. Use the straw on the nozzle rather than the wide spray, aim along the shaft rather than up at the roof, and keep the burst short. Better still, spray a little onto a cotton bud or a rag and carry it to the shaft, which puts no mist in the car at all. Wipe any run immediately rather than letting it sit.
Penetrating oil is also a solvent, so keep it off the visor covering itself and off painted or soft touch trim. On a leather or Alcantara visor, try it somewhere hidden first. And work the visor up and down a few times after a small amount rather than soaking it, since more oil does not make a worn pivot work better.
Sunvisor sagging
A common problem with Mercedes-Benz C, SLK, E, CLS, and S-Class models is the sagging sun visor. If your Mercedes-Benz is out of warranty, then you are left to fix this problem yourself. Don’t expect a recall for sun visor problems; you are typically on your own when it comes to sun visor problems.
What if your sun visor fabric or leather is sagging? In most cases, you need to replace the sun visor, but in the meantime, you can use Sagging/Loose headliner retaining pins to make the sun visor look a little better.
If the visor will not stay up, do not lubricate it
The fix above is for the opposite complaint. If your visor drops down on its own, or will not hold anywhere except fully up or fully down, the pivot has lost its grip rather than seized. Those pivots hold position by friction, so oil is exactly the wrong thing to put in one. It will drop faster afterwards, and because the oil then has to be cleaned out of the mechanism you have made the next repair harder rather than easier.
Tell the two apart before you reach for anything: a visor that fights you when you move it needs lubricant, and a visor that moves too easily and will not stay put needs the pivot or the visor replaced. There is nothing to tighten from outside on these, which is the honest answer, and it is why the replacement links further down are usually where a floppy visor ends up.
How to fix the vanity mirror’s broken flap?
The vanity mirror, or as it is often referred to as the makeup mirror flap, breaks very easily on many Mercedes-Benz cars. We have seen E-Class, C-Class, S-Class, CLK, SLK, ML, GL, GLK, and other models, where the makeup mirror flap has come off due to the small plastic hinge breaking off.
If you have this problem, you have two options. The first option is to replace the sun visor. You can usually find an exact fit on eBay. Here are a few listings for Mercedes-Benz Sun Visor Auctions
. Your second alternative is to recreate the broken hinge. To do this repair, you will need a stiff steel wire with a diameter of approximately 1.5 mm. You should be able to find such a wire at hardware stores like Home Depot.
You can cut the wire the width of the sun visor mirror, leaving an extra 4 mm on each side. Heat up the steel wire and insert it into the vanity mirror flap. The new steel shaft should go through the same location where the plastic hinges were located. You should now have hinges on both sides of the vanity mirror flap/cover.
Where to find replacement sun visors?
A quick search on Amazon returned several sun visors for many Mercedes-Benz models, including W210, W211, W203, W204, W170, W208, W209, and more. Take a look at this list, you may find a replacement sun visor for a lot less than what you would pay at a dealer or your local auto parts store.
Before you buy parts, scan every control module, not just the engine. It shows the root fault behind the warning lights and tells you whether the problem is still active. See how to do a full health check.
