Hmmm...I wonder if this campaign extends to cars in Europe too.... I mean, the balancer in my car could have come from the same supplier!!!

I live in Sweden and own a E320 4matic 2000 (w210).

My dealer ran the VIN, but won't do it without the letter. Anyone recived any C-Class letter yet. He said s and clk letters already went out.

No Service Campaign in Europe??
 

I've just had communication with the Service Department of a very large MB factory dealer (Niederlassung) in Germany; and I was told that there has been no Service Campaign for this problem in Europe. He further tells me that he has seen no problems with the Harmonic Balancer over there.

Interesting. I wonder if the litigatious atmosphere in the US may have influenced MBUSA to do this Service Campaign.

Harmonic Service Bulletin from StarTek Site is here
 

FWIW:

www.edsoto.com and click on the pdf file.

-ED

Dutch - the balancer comes apart and damages expensive parts. Litigious or not, the QA departments at Benz and their supplier, or, Engineering screwed up, and the proper thing to do is make it right, scum sucking lawyers or not. This is not a U.S. thing, its about doing the right thing.

It's too bad there were so many failures before Benz decided to stop hiding from the problem. Seems they are taking the high road now. Hoping they continue to do so.

I understand. However, I am being told by a DCAG Parts Department in Germany that there is no Service Campaign there.

I read the .pdf file in a post above. It speaks to under-hood temperatures. Maybe has something to do with sitting at stoplights, or, here on the 80/90/94 corridor, being in the highway construction season of the year.

Never been to Germany - is the traffic as bad there as it is here?

As bad or worse.

Maybe Germans simply accept these kind of problems and would rather pay for fixing it than complaining about an obvious manufacturing issue?
Or maybe it is not that obvious to them?
Are the engines in question identical to US models?

Mine is a European (pre-MBUSA) model. Someone also said that warranties only last one year in Germany. If that's the case, the ones in question would be long past warranty coverage.

Whoa, whoa, whoa... warranty?

Warrenty doesn't have anything to do with a recall campaign, does it? My '00 E320 is one of the affected cars and went out of warranty last year.

Should I expect a letter from MBUSA soon?

[dorian] | eclass210.com

Yes you Should!

Just to be accurate, it is not a recall campaign, which is a campaign that is forced by the U.S. governement.

Because of the number of complaints of the balancer failures, NHTSA launched an investigation, and decided not to force Mercedes to conduct a recall, I guess because the governemnt felt it did not affect safety.

Instead, Mercedes decided for PR or customer satisfaction issues, that they would voluntarily conduct a service campaign to replace the faulty balancers.

How many people interested in Class Action Lawsuit?
 

PLEASE READ ENTIRE POST........!!!

I'm in a situation where MB only wants to pay $250.00 to reimburse me for a new balancer, balancer bolt, and belt. My damages were far more severe and cost in the thousands to repair. MB isn't taking resonsibility for damages occuring as a result of the failed part.....PLEASE READ ON!!!!!!!

I'm looking for people who would be interested in participating in a class action lawsuite which meet ONLY THE FOLLOWING CRITERIA

* Balancer failed out of warranty - you paid out of pocket to repair
* Damages beyond simply replacing the balancer occurred (i.e. damaged timing cover, damaged, oil pan, or damage to any other engine components)

Please E-MAIL me at mbusasucks@yahoo.com Also feel free to post here in the forum too as a sound-off but I need e-mails with detailed information from each of you.

Please include the following information:
Full name and address
Contact phone number(s)
Vehicle model and year
Mileage when failure occurred
Total cost of repairs (please be truthful...attorney will require supporting documentation)

I am hoping that we can get enough of us together that an attorney would be interested enough to represent us. If we get enough people rallied up it would be well worth the time to an attorney to represent us. The fees would come out of the final award.

e-mail address: mbusasucks@yahoo.com

Harmonic Balancer
 

If you read the details of the letter from NHTSA to MB regarding the 546 complaints I believe I recall reading a reference to the fact that MB recalled ALL the MLs in Japan for this issue. That fact got some of us really mad. There's some really good and interesting reading in that letter to MB, citing similar issues on other models.

NHTSA Action Number was PE03058.

Send me a private message if you want to see that correspondence and I will try to locate it.