New member, first time MB owner. Now what??
 

Hi, I recently inherited a 1997 E420. I've owned Audis for years and done all of my own maitainence and repairs, but this is my first MB and I'm in need of some wisdom from some of you long-time Benz owners.

First off, what is the chassis designation for this car? I've looked through the forums and found references to several different chasis numbers, but have no idea what mine is. Knowing this number will help me with question #2, which is how do I reach the blower motor regulator in my car? The heater blower only operates at low speed, and the forums seem to indicate that the likely problem is the regulator. But I couldn't find any threads that concerned this problem and an E420, so I'm not sure if the regulator is a separate part or built-in to the blower motor on my car. It looks like a fairly straight-forward procedure on some of the cars (if you know your chasis number), but I want to know what I'm getting into before starting the job. If this symptom does NOT indicate the regulator please tell me the likely culprit do I can start over. Also, any ideas for the best (and least expensive!) place to buy MB parts?

Thanks for any help you can give me. This looks like a great forum and I'm looking forward to learning a lot from it.

Yours is a W210.

The reg is part of the blower motor unfortunately. There is a retrofit where a W140 reg is used to repair the W210's. Look in the DIY links.

Buy parts from Phil (Buy Parts) above to support the forum (he hosts it).