'98 ML 320, at approx. 75K miles; approx. 6 months ago. Balancer took out the front timing cover and oil pan; cost over $2200 to repair. Dealer denied ever having heard of a problem with the M112/113 harmonic balancers.

Contacted MBUSA Customer Service, who stated that there is no problem with these balancers and that the failure must have been a fluke. Attempted to escalate the matter but MBUSA failed to follow through.


Doubting MBUSA's response was truthful, inspected '99 E320T, 60K miles... rubber buffer in harmonic balancer was fatigued, with numerous partial thickness cracks. Vehicle has Star Mark warranty but dealer declined to perform balancer renewal, said balancer has no known history of failure. Had balancer replaced anyway, to avoid catastrophic failure.

BTW, a friend's E320 was recently towed to the same dealership... the harmonic balancer had failed, taking out the front timing cover and oil pan. The same service advisor informed him that he had never seen a balancer fail...

About time for a class action?