Scroll wheel broken shaft

[etharla]

Hi, was just wondering did anyone ever come across the issue of the scroll wheel function failing? I've heard it's a very common issue. A work colleague had this issue and I took the unit apart and was able to repair it within around 20 mins or so.

 

[Druk]

What did you use for repair? Apparently it is quite common.

 

[ChrisEdu]

Superglue?

 

[MancMike]

Yeah it is common. It always breaks there due to that stupid bit of design where the 4 plastic legs appear from around the bolt head. All it needed was 1 or 2mm of plastic face in front of that bolt head.

I fixed mine also using araldite, but it broke again after a few months. I'd suggest using metal pins epoxied to each of the four crevices and inserted into holes drilled up the sides of the bolt head to strengthen it.

If it's just glued it'll likely go again.

 

[Abcan]

Yes. It happened on my uncle's car. He took it apart and found it broke like the one in your pic. I used Araldite Rapid (the 2 part mix one) and it's been fine ever since.

 

[etharla]

I drilled a few small holes in the metal insert for extra adhesion and then joined the pieces with an industrial glue similar to Superglue. Built a few layers of glue round the crevices and sprayed with an activator to cure the glue. If it breaks again at least it will only take 30mins to repair again. I see a guy on eBay is selling a machined aluminium replacement - but it's £35, I'll "stick" to the superglue. Sorry for the pun, I just couldn't resist it.

 

[Stratman]

Polypipe solvent cement is excellent for those kind of plastics which don't really respond to superglue.

The downsides are it's messy, no matter how hard you try you'll get it on your hands, and the joint needs supporting while it sets.

 

[MancMike]

Do you have a link to the eBay aluminium replacement?

 

[Druk]

Does it come to bits easy? Might do a preventative before it breaks.

 

[MancMike]

I had a photo of mine fully disassembled. It was like an exploded diagram. There are many parts, but thankfully it's fairly logical how it all goes together, just take many pictures as you go to refer back to.

 

[MancMike]

Ah, here it is.

http://www.mbclub.co.uk/forums/interior/192699-my-knob-broken.html

There's a video of one being done, which I referred to to know how to approach it.

Then further down a photo of mine disassembled.

 

[etharla]

Do you have a link to the eBay aluminium replacement?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/152243814501

 

[Fady]

I had the same issue - E-Class but it's the same part. Rather than gluing the rod, I bought this metal one off ebay.de Repair Kit Shaft Axis Comand Controller Scrolling Knob W204 W212 X204 Mercedes It was actually 32 Euros earlier in the year but has gone up a bit.

Reading around the US forums, it seems to go after about 4 years. Mine probably wasn't helped by the fact that I use a 160gb ipod with about 15,000 songs. Up to that point, I had not realised that you can position by artist/album using the telephone key pad. So I would merrily scroll through say from 'A' to 'S' which took ages and no doubt contributed to the wear. That said, it's a shoddy design not really befitting MB.

There's a youtube video for dismantling the W212 console. I managed to not have to cut any cables - though it was a little frustrating to have to remove more bits of trim just to get to the console cable plug (felt that it could have been made easier, then I guess there may be no cause to go there in most vehicles). The only 'damage' I did was breaking one of the feet off one side of the wood trim that runs along the side of the console. Video makes it look as it just comes away but mine wouldn't budge. Then it came away forcibly (putting a very bloody gash in my finger), but I used Araldite to glue it back and a blob of Bluetack to keep it in place at the funny 70 degree-ish angle that it needs to be at while I left it to dry.