I picked up a 99 E320 with only 80k miles that is in VERY nice shape for $300. Car is a flood car. In the engine compartment looks like the water was up to about the alternator. Inside the car I can see a light layer of silt in the seat bottoms, front and back, and some in the ash try. No silt in the compartment above the ash try or in the center console compartment. So, it appears the water covered the center console but not much higher. I pulled the back seat and there was a brand new MB battery installed which was nice, but it was completely dead. There was about an inch of water still standing in the battery well under the seat. I popped the drain plug and drained it. Today I dropped a battery in it and this is what I found. At first the fog lights, parking lights, and tail lights were on even though key was off and switch was off. Later on they turned off. Headlights turn off and on with switch. Key turns on and cluster works, but turning key to start does nothing. When the key is turned on, the radiator fan comes on high. IIRC I believe the fan is running on low when the key is turned off. At first I was able to get drivers front and passenger rear windows to work, but later did not work. I did not try passenger seat but drivers seat tried to move in some directions. The steering wheel moved. Radio does not power on. ACC powers on but blower does not work.



I hooked up SDS to see what I could see. It could not access the engine electronics module at all. It did access traction control and BAS from what I recall but had error code about that module could not access engine electronics. I accessed the gear selector and looking at actual values it appears that is working just fine as near as I can tell, which surprised me. At least it registered what gear it was in etc.



Engine oil is clean as is transmission fluid.



Car is so nice I would like to try and see if I can get it going with a little bit of effort. I would assume any computer boxes that were below the water line are fried. It sounds like the engine electronics box is toast. Where is it located? The relay box under the hood where the trans computer is was dry and did not look like it got wet. Is the fuse box next to the battery just a fuse box or is it actually a computer module?


So the reason I am even thinking about attempting this is because I have a completely intact but wrecked 01 E320 that I could swap any water damaged computer modules from. I figure I would swap the fuse box under the seat for sure. I might have to swap seat modules also. Aside from that, are there any others that live under the floor boards or below the level the water was? I will probably dig into the WIS and see what I can figure out.



If I can't get it going with a mild amount of efforts, I will just part the car out but that seems a shame given the low miles, nice paint, zero rust etc.