I haven't driven my '88 190E 2.6 special order five-speed for a bit over a week, and today when I started the engine the HVAC fan was on full speed despite the control lever being set on the lowest speed. I fiddled with the HVAC controls, fan control slide, and temperature control wheel, but nothing seemed to work.

I went ahead and ran several errands and continued to work all the HVAC controls, but no change. With several errands the ignition got cycled several times, but no change.

It wasn't until I got home and opened the door before I shut off the engine that I heard the dual aux. electric cooling fans were also on high speed even though the temp gage was at 80C and had not exceeded 85 during the drive. I had not heard them before, perhaps because of all the noise from the HVAC fan.

I'm thinking the so-called KLIMA relay may be the culprit or, perhaps, even a fuse. I'm going to poke around, but would appreciate any advice, especially from someone who has experienced this problem on a similar vintage model.

I'm really perplexed. Is the full-on HVAC fan and aux. electric cooling fans being on high speed connected in some way or is it just coincidence that the two problems happened at the same time?

I may have to start calling it the "Mercurial Benz" again, which is what I called it during the warranty period when it had a lot of problems, but mostly small, and I've kept the car all these years because I've always really liked it.

Duke