I agree. I think the point of warm air coming out of the side vents is to allow them to be pointed at the side windows in winter to defrost them so you can see your side-view mirrors. I usually turn my side vent controls down to half-flow and point the air flow at the side windows when the weather gets cold.

New vehicles (non-MB) of course have separate little vents to defog the side windows, but I guess the engineers at MB wanted to kill 2 birds with 1 stone.

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Steve
'93 400E