That's right. $54,000 and change. All because of some nasty weather (and some poor judgement). I've been with MB for nearly twenty years, but I've never seen a repair bill like this.

Here's what hapened. One of my clients' drove his 2007 SL600 through some "standing water", during a torrential downpour back in September. The engine started running rough, then stalled. It re-started but didn't sound right. He called MB Roadside Assistance to ask what to do. The Roadside Tech (from my dealership), has heard this story before, so he sent out a flat-bed to haul it back to the shop.

The next morning we went out and started the engine. It had a noticeable knock, but still ran on all twelve cylinders. There were obvious signs of water ingestion, so we advised he owner to contact his insurance company. Later that day, an insurance adjuster came in to have a look. He gave us the OK for a few hours of diagnosis, so we did a borescope inspection. We found a nice scratch on the #10 cylinder wall, and what looked like a small chip on the edge of the piston. We reported our findings to the insurance guy and he agreed to pay the bill to remove the cylinder head for a closer look. Unfortunately, the cylinder wall was indeed ruined.

Normally under these circumstances, we would write an estimate for a complete, new engine from the factory. As it turns out, the M275, twin-turbo V12 engine is not available as a replacement part, so we had to build one. We wrote an estimate for a new engine block (two-piece, bedplate construction), a new crankshaft, all the bottom-end bearings, connecting rods, fitted pistons w/rings, both turbo-chargers, catalytic converters, and all the O2 sensors. Oh yeah, I almost forgot. We rounded off the labor time to one-hundred hours. The insurance company never even blinked. They approved the job, so we ordered the parts. That's when the problems started.

Most of the parts arrived within two weeks (everything was on back-order). The engine block showed up about a week later. We looked over everything closely and discovered that MB sent us a block for a right-hand drive car! We re-ordered the block, and two weeks later the correct one showed up. Finally, nearly six weeks after the car arrived at the shop, we had everything we needed (minus a few incidentals) to start the job.

Everything went smoothly, and three weeks later , we lit it up. Nothing leaked, it didn't throw any fault codes, and it ran like a beast. We drove it around for three more days, re-checked everything, got it detailed, and returned it to the owner.

He told me he was going to pay closer attention to the Weather Channel in the future, and if necessary, drive his GL.