[A930Rocket]

We drove my wife's 2006 MB R350 out of town last weekend and it rained cats and dogs for days. On Sunday, at 6 AM, my wife went to take our son to the state swim meet and the car wouldn't start. We were able to get it jumped started and I drove them to the pool. When I was leaving, I heard the sound of water splashing. At first I thought it was an overturned water bottle, but I then noticed the passenger side carpet was wet. Looks like the car has developed a leak I thought. After driving it awhile, I noticed that the interior blower motor turned on when I removed the key and it was still on when I got back in.

We made it back home and I made an appointment at Baker Mercedes Benz where we bought the car (and the only MB dealer for 100 miles) to have it looked at. Dropped it off yesterday at 10 AM and was given an update this AM. The dealer says that there is a drain in the air intake box under the hood that gets clogged up allowing water to enter the air handler/blower motor, shorting it out. It's not covered under warranty and would cost about $800 to repair and install two new cabin air filters. There's a TSB that says to remove the rubber diaphragm in the air intake box drain if water enters the air handler/blower motor. Pulling the diaphragm per the TSB after the damage is acknowledging there is a problem, but they won’t cover the damages.

There is no reference anywhere to check the drain in the owners manual or either the A or B service, though the dealer says it should be checked at that time. Our local Indy MB guy has serviced our cars for years, so we don't pay the Stealership prices and he's not heard of it. The service manager said since we don’t have the car serviced at the Stealership, he could not have it repaired under any kind of “goodwill” as done for others and he suggested I have it done for free at our Indy since they “make a lot of money”. I didn’t buy the car from my Indy, I bought it from Baker Mercedes Benz and said they should cover the damages. The cabin air filters are spec’d to be pulled from the interior at the glove box, so there is no call to look at the outside and the drain (although I've found that it can be done).

After going round and round, the service manager would not budge. A call to MBUSA was just as pointless. The Case manager at MBUSA said the decision was made with the dealer that they won’t cover it. Thanks for calling!

After looking on-line, I read how to remove the blower and clean the PCB on it. Works as it should now and I saved almost $600 over having the Stealership fix it or me buying a new blower motor for $275.

This is the same Stealership that tried to fix the sunroof on our 95 E320 while it was under warranty. They couldn't fix it and said they weren't going to try any more. A MB dealer in Atlanta fixed it under warranty and it worked great after that.

I’ve probably left out something, but that’s the crux of it.

What are the thoughts of the Pelican brain trust on this one?