I bought my 03 L322 from new and within a couple of weeks one of the axis (i forget which) packed in. No noise and no motion either.
I had not written the diagnostic software for this model yet, but then that's one of the reasons i bought one.
As i have a Testbook and T4, i hooked it up and read the fault code memory of the seats module, as that is what controls the column motors. There was no faults showing at all which might have seemed odd to some, but i obviously have some experience of TB and it's Fault masking shinanigans and so i monitored it at raw data level requesting the fault codes from the ECU and i could see a couple being returned. I manually worked out their values and manually looked them up to discover they were motor over current related.
I tricked the TB into letting me clear the fault code memory and lo and behold that restored operationality. Well for a time anyway :doh:
When we wrote our own software, it was then much less hassle to read and clear the faults and after a few recurrences it seems the action got more worked and it happened less frequently.
Then one day a couple of years down the line, while getting out of the vehicle and pulling on the wheel as suggested here, something gave on the up and down motion leaving it flopping around.
My dealer confirmed this was not unknown, especially with ahemm, larger types. And he was not being diplomatically unkind, as although i am indeed a bit tubby round the middle, i am really quite a big framed guy anyway.
So i fitted a new Column (600 quid job) and saw the bit of cast ally that had broke and it was indeed well wimpy.
But what was interesting was that with the new column the old over current saga got re started all over again for me.
I know this does not seem to fit with the stripping threads aspect, but hopefully it will be of help to some.