Either your striker is misaligned, which you can unbolt and adjust.
You'll most likely strip those bolts, they're a pain in the ass I'll tell you.
Or the eyelet? I have no idea what it is called, but if that is broken you'll run into this issue.
The little orange piece is what I'm talking about.
Over on PeachParts, there's this thread: door striker quick fix W123, W126 - PeachParts Mercedes ShopForum It's a quick fix if the orange part is broken. You can also purchase that part for about 10$ a door. But you must remove the striker to get to this piece, which is a pain as I said. The bolts are not cheap either for OEM ones
Of course there could be other reasons why your door does this, but these are the most likely causes.
You can buy the little rubber pieces for the striker. I got some after BayouFisher's post but lost the ordering info. It was $16 for 4. I didn't have trouble getting my driver side striker off but two of the bolts on the passenger side stripped. Very frustrating.
However, the driver door shuts normally now.
Recommend that you put tape around the striker before taking it off to see where to line it up at when putting it back. You'll see why when you take it off.
I went through this exact problem a few months ago. I bought the Lock Eye Repair Kit. It worked great! The problem I had was in getting the striker repositioned correctly. I carefully marked the exact position of the striker before I removed it. However, in that position I still had difficult latching with the new repair parts installed. It took me quite a while and lots of trial and error to get it set right. It turned out the problem wasn't so much the Up/Down/In/Out, as it was the angle of the striker hole verses the latch positioning pin. Took me several hours of screwing with this to get it right. But good gracious is it wonderful to have properly latching doors again!!
Check door seals too - sometimes these get in the way.
Related Threads
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
Mercedes-Benz Forum
posts
7.8M
members
748K
Since
1999
BenzWorld.org forum is one of the largest Mercedes-Benz owner websites offering the most comprehensive collection of Mercedes-Benz information anywhere in the world. The site includes MB Forums, News, Galleries, Publications, Classifieds, Events and much more!