Yes, bad stuff happens all the time, but occasionally shop owners are decent enough to recognize when it was probably the fault of one of their employees. Haven't others been in situations where shop insurance covered a problem? I had a major service done on my wife's car at a reputable shop. They did the timing belt, radiator, and a few other things. 5000 miles later while approx 1500 miles from home, the timing belt tensioner bolt broke and the engine siezed. The shop accepted responsibility and they refunded my tow home, a rental car for a month, and put in a lower mileage replacement engine. Who knows if they overtightened the bolt or if it was just time for it to break? But the shop did the very decent thing of covering all that expense. I have no idea if detail shops carry similar insurance, but to simply "bite the bullet" seems like not the most helpful advice.

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1968 220D, w115, /8, OM615, Automatic transmission.
My 1987 300TD wagon was sold and my 2003 W210 E320 wagon was totaled (sheds tear).

Get it fixed under warranty.

How many miles left on the warranty? Who knows!? The odometer is wiped out.
That's illegal. You'd think Mercedes would want to fix this one for free.

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Cheers!
Scott McPhee

1987 300D

Illegal on whose account? Are you suggesting that MB be held liable for every odometer that fails? Ever?

The odo really isn't wiped out, it should be able to be pulled with a factory scan tool from the dash and / or engine computer.

I disagree.

Weren't you talking about checking for liquid (or perhaps moisture)?


As I stated before we have no way of knowing what was done to the car.

Even so I am inclined to believe the OP if he says the problem did not exist before he took it to the detailer.

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1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!

BMW has honored past-warranty repairs on LCD failure in their clusters for many years on E39's. If you contacted BMW USA they would direct your dealer to perform the repair with either labor or parts covered, or both.

It is now 10+ years after the last E39 rolled and none are in warranty any longer but they are still honoring this. These days they tend to only cover labor, but that cuts the cost down about 50%.

They do it specifically because it made it impossible to visually read the odometer. They do not offer similar coverage for the radio/cd player display - that's on the owner.

Different company, I know. However, there is a precedent for manufacturers taking responsibility for keeping their odometers functional when complete failure occurs.

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1979 300D 040 Black on Black - 1985 300D Maaco job (sadly sprayed over 199 Black Pearl Metallic) on Palamino

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You stated:

"It might not be liquid damage. This is not necessarily the definitive cause of the damage. It could have been caused by something else such as too much heat. The car could have been steam cleaned."

To state that the car ( ostensibly the dash ) may have been "steam cleaned" is dilusional, there would be physical damage to the dash is this occured. ( melting of plastic, water behind the lenses. ) Steam is water heated to over 212* F / 100 *C forming a vapor, as it cools it will revert back to liquid water.

Don't think for a minute that steam cleaning the engine will heat the dash anywhere near the elevated temps the car see in the hot sun.

I went with the liquid theory because there really isn't much else the shop could have done to cause the issue. Pulling the dash and cracking it open is the only way to tell if shop did something wrong.

As for others saying the shop is liable simply because the car was under their Care , Custidy and Control, that won't stand up in court. A shop is liable only if they caused the failure not just because they had possession of it.

If you were driving a loaned car and the headlights burned out, would you be legally liable? What if a fan belt broke? ( You might fix it because you are repaying the loaner but that dynamic does not work in a regular business. )

I never disputed that the car was OK and then not after picking the car up, only who is liable. A shop might pay out just to get rid of the problem ( and undeserved bad press ) but that does not make them at fault.

I don't dispute that BMW is changing the ODO at reduced cost, they are likely doing it out of goodwill not a legal requirement imposed on them rather than the car owner.

This seems to be contradictory. What's your point?

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1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!

I was a little confused about the issue. Was this an after the fact kind of problem? I kind of thought like you didn't notice the problem or that you didn't report it on picking up the car at the detail shop. If that was the case, then it makes it much more difficult to be able to get the shop's assist, I believe. Too often people are in a hurry to pick up a car, that was in for service of some nature, and don't spend any or enough time looking the car over before exiting with it. However, I think, the credibility of the shop and customer service will be a plus for you on it!

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Rebe

This is like arguing with a drunk, .. or using an Apple Newton. Egg Freckles?


The Geek Culture Forums: Comic for feb 27...

Seems to me someone might be surprised to find out about localised dash temperatures in sunlight.

What ever - It most certainly is difficult discussing things with someone who turns things into an argument because they are on a crusade to prove the innocence of every shop owner.

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1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!

I use steam often on dash, and interior... I've never seen any damage like you describe...

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My drivers:
1987 190D 2.5Turbo
1987 190D 2.5Turbo
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1987 300TD
1987 300TD
1994GMC 2500 6.5Turbo truck... I had to put the ladder somewhere!

What brand / model of cleaner? Have you put a thermometer on a surface then shot it with your cleaner? I suspect you have a warm water vapor cleaner not steam.

The failure isn't a bleaching of the display ( localized dry heat ) , it is a sync problem in the electronics.

This type of display uses an X Y grid to form the display, if a single wire to the grid was lost, a row of pixles would be lost not a scrambled display so that shows the problem is deeper in the dash

If the shop applied too much heat from whatever source, the dash plastic would be melted. There are things like thermal inertia , heat transfer rate that come into play. Edges of plastic will melt before the display electronics reach any appreciably elevated temperature if someone held some sort of heating device to the display.

I am trying to find the actual cause not , as others have done, instantly blame the shop simply because they had possession of the car. If the shop _actually_ did something to cause the damage I'm OK with having them pay for it.

As stated in my prior post, dissembling the instrument cluster in the presence of the shop and car owner then looking for water damage would tell the tale.

I'm hoping the OP posts the _actual_ cause of failure. NOT who paid for the repair as that tells us nothing beyond one parts just wanted to make the problem go away.

Question => does anyone know what type of plastic the dash is likely to be made of?

There's a list here of melt temperatures (which admittedly is for flow temperatures at a nozzle but perhaps the point of melting is quite close?)

Melt Temps

The lowest melt temp in that list is about 170 degrees C but others have melt temperatures of 370 degrees C

From that data at least there seems to be quite a wide range of melt temperatures for plastics

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1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!