The W211 shoe has dropped
 

After 8 absolutely trouble-free years, my wife's 2008 E320 has finally had a failure, and it is a doozie.

She called me for a rescue because she couldn't steer it and had a "battery" message. Luckily it happened in a Starbucks parking lot (she spends a lot of time at Starbucks).

I immediately thought "serp belt" and when I arrived and looked the belt was indeed in shreds. Her dealer (I am forbidden to maintain this car, thank God) has been providing excellent service so I really didn't expect this.

We had it towed and when the dealer inspected it, they found that the harmonic balancer had come apart, shredded the belt and the belt took the power steering pump. Total was about $1900 to repair. The harmonic balancer recall only covered up to 2001 so it was money out of her pocket.

Once more, I wished she would have been satisfied with a well-sorted W123.

rocky, if the same dealer has maintained this vehicle since new I would ask why they didn't notice that the harmonic balancer was starting to fail. Certainly your 2008 E320 is not the only one to have harmonic balancer issues. You may also want to ask to see the specifics of the harmonic balancer recall. I know that our 1998 E320 was included in the recall. It sounds like another inherent defect where MB decides at some point to stop absorbing repair costs, and sticks it to their customers instead. That failure is something that should not occur on a $55,000, or more, automobile.

FWIW, I've never seen an M272, OM642/648 harmonic balancer fail, and I work at a VERY high volume dealership so it's likely I would know if it was a common problem. I would recommend reviewing the service history and see if the balancer has ever been removed, or could have been damaged during the course of other repair work..........

Good advice Ferd. Will do.

MILS; This car has been dead reliable until this failure. It has only received preventive maintenance. Nothing, until now has failed requiring a repair.

Thanks to both of you.

Never heard of a harmonic balancer failure on an OM642. We had the same car. Wife decided to replace it about a year ago @100K miles when it had the oil cooler seals, intake flap motor, and front end (ball joints, mostly) problems all in short order.

How many miles are on it?

About 68k.