steering wheel position doesn't return to saved position on restart

My 1998 BMW 528i's steering wheel doesn't return to the saved position upon restarting the ignition. It's began to do it very seldom, but now it does it almost every time I turn the ignition off. I haven't checked to see if the the other things that are memorized in the 3 presets fails also. The steering wheel moving up and out of the way is essential for getting out of the car and that works fine, but when I restart the car I have to press the memory preset button # 1 to get the wheel to return to the preset position. Is this a bad switch, a battery issue or something else?

Thanks,

m3doc