At 70,000 the dealer noticed the problem during waranty work and MB paid for the part and it cost me $90.00 for labor.

I've read dang near all of the post in the 27 some pages related to the HB problem.
I have a 99 w/the bad part number. Spoke w/the local dealer, they deny knowledge....they referred me to MBUSA. Just disconnected w/one of their phone monkeys who quite frankly did an admirable job of deflecting every point I made: Japan recalling all of their units; the NTHSA's investigation etc.
Bottom line, NO JOY.
Won't do me any good to take them to small claims court, the failure has yet to occur.
Perhaps those who assert it is the corporations, no government, who are running our lives.
OK...do I feel better? No not really. I still have a car we'd saved for years to purchase for it's realibility and safety profile only to end up w/a headache.
thanks for listening
ray

I have a 2000 E320 4matic with an engine serial number prior to the change to the updated HB. Mine, however came from the factory with the updated 08 balancer!!. Just replaced it at 95,000 kms. as the rubber was coming out. I thought the 08's were supposed to have solved the problem!! Fortunately mine has the 160,000 extended warranty so no problems at the dealer, they were great.

Wow I was just told of this fourm.

We are orginal owners of a 1998 E 430 with 77,000 miles on it that hase every service performed at the local MB dealer.

We were shocked when we spent $3,000 last week replacing the Air Cond Compressor. Fornt brakes and rotors, valve cover gaskets,aux fan motor, and the harmonic balance ( under warrenty) one window motor.

I have had nothing like this on my BMW or any of the many American and Toyota's that I have owned in the last 25 years. I was really shocked at the cost and the failures of these parts.

Ray

Me either. Other than the fancy Star on the hood or in the grill these cars/trucks are nothing more than poorly manufactured, overpriced, status symbols. Good thing there a forums like this to vent on, because nobody else understands what someone that has a problematic Mercedes-Benz has to put up with. An embarassing purchase mistake that will never be repeated. Just my 2 cents worth.

Sorry to burst you're bubble with the "new" parts don't fail......I've replaced one on a 2003 W211 E500.

They are still failing but they are failing ALOT slower so they are now being picked up during servicing before they do any damage. The ones that are failing (rubber hanging out a bit, pulley no longer spiiner straight, but not yet failed) are beinge seen on any NA M112/113.

You'll be pleased to know that we're starting to see this fault infrequently and the upper sump replacement rate has dropped from one every 2 weeks to one every few months.

It's just unfortunate that when they do fail that they cause such expensive damage. When they fail on older holden/gm or fords they just get VERY noisy but no damage is done (except to the drive belt)

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Alex.

MB Tech
Sydney, Australia
Volvo 122S
W201 190D 2.5 manual
W202 C240
W203 C32

I don't have one of these cars, nor have I worked on one or seen the problem.
However I do work or cars for a living and want to shed some light on the problem.
In the US, all recalls are safty related. Safty related means many prople have been killed, and the famalies have sued and recieved huge settlements. Just because a problem could be safty related doesn't mean the manufacturer will recall it before it happens. In Japan, cars are recalled because of a defect in the manufactur of the car or a part used in the manufacture. SO the MBs were recalled in Japan, and not in the US. MB chose to do as the other car manufacturers do in the country they are sold in.
By the way, I have seen this problem on quite a few Jeep vehicles but found the problem before it caused a problem. The problem is the belt pully is mounted in the rubber, and eventually rips the rubber loose. It takes quite a bit of power to run the alt, A/C, wp, ap, p/s and whatever, so the rubber connection between the crankshaft hub and the belt pully finally gives up.
They can change the numbers from now to eternaty and won't fix the problem until they connect the pully directly to the crankshaft.

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84 500 SEL (307,xxx miles)

Hey Paul,

I sent you a PM. Please respond as soon as you are able to. Thanks.

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1999 Mercedes-Benz S600, 103K miles - garage queen
1988 Mercedes-Benz 560SEL, 89K miles - daily driver
2007 Hyundai Sonata Limited, 31K - daily driver

My old Nissan went 215K with no pulley problems. GM has made literally millions of these with the rubber in them, and they've been working fine for years. Without the rubber they would transfer too much crankshaft vibration to the belt and the accessories. The problem must be specific to this part; a rubber bonded balancer is not unique.

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Lenny

There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games. --Ernest Hemingway

'10 GL550/'04 BMW 545/'99 BMW 323/'98 ML320/'87 VW GTI (race)

Received response from NHTSA to my inquiry on results of their investigation on the ML balancer failures, being one of the complainers to the NHTSA. Results of the investigation are available on their web site if you enter PE03058 in the search box. INCR-PE03058-17713P.pdf is the closing report. In summary, 55 complaints were registered by NHTSA, another 503 complaints were received by Mercedes. Apparently Mercedes also paid out 59,211 warranty claims on ML's for this defect. Also, 421,204 model year 1998-2000 Mercedes vehicles have this design balancer, with 255,930 with a balancer potentially subject to the same failure mode. As of April, Mercedes reported 5 related lawsuits. These are stats from the NHTSA final report. No consolation for those of us that shelled out $1500-3000 for collateral damage. But at least it's costing Benz. We can only hope for class action.

Further info from the report. Mercedes did not issue a TSB, but did issue "tech Tips" in 2000 to select factory technicians. This should have been a TSB to alert all. Mercedes also reported that the failure is progressive, with plenty of warning. Based on one personal experience, I do not concur.

I encourage all to read the report.

Received response from NHTSA to my inquiry on results of their investigation on the ML balancer failures, being one of the complainers to the NHTSA. Results of the investigation are available on their web site if you enter PE03058 in the search box. INCR-PE03058-17713P.pdf is the closing report. In summary, 55 complaints were registered by NHTSA, another 503 complaints were received by Mercedes. Apparently Mercedes also paid out 59,211 warranty claims on ML's for this defect. Also, 421,204 model year 1998-2000 Mercedes vehicles have this design balancer, with 255,930 with a balancer potentially subject to the same failure mode. As of April, Mercedes reported 5 related lawsuits. These are stats from the NHTSA final report. No consolation for those of us that shelled out $1500-3000 for collateral damage. But at least it's costing Benz. We can only hope for class action.

Further info from the report. Mercedes did not issue a TSB, but did issue "tech Tips" in 2000 to select factory technicians. This should have been a TSB to alert all. Mercedes also reported that the failure is progressive, with plenty of warning. Based on one personal experience, I do not concur.

I encourage all to read the report.

Lenny,
I know GM has used rubber mounted harmonic balancers for years and so have many other manufacturers. However the pullys are bolted directly to the crankshaft hub and the balancer which is just a heavy weighted ring is mounted with rubber to hub or is part of the hub. I hve seen a few of these fail, but have seen or herd of a lot of pullys mounted in rubber comming loose when the rubber gives up.

Paul

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84 500 SEL (307,xxx miles)

I just noticed a post on Benz World, where someone was told by MB service manager that they are in the process of doing a "recal" of sorts and some pople will be re-embursed. I will wait to see it happen but doubt it.

Several months ago, heck maybe even a year by now I had the HB fail on my ML320. I have a few posts many pages prior to this that I posted right after the failure occurred.
Well, for whatever it is worth one of my personal friends who works in the service department at the MB dealer here just told me that it is looking quite favorable that we will recover our money for damages that occurred due to a faulty HB. We'll just have to see if anything materializes out of this whole process.
I was one of those 55 registered complaints with the NHTSA as well as one of the 503 formal complaints to MB. Up to the point that my HB failure occurred EVERY single service and repair had been done by MB and they still refused to give me a good faith and it was out of warranty by just under 10K miles. I took it to an indie for half the amount that MB wanted for the repair. I must say that just like all of you I am VERY let down in the quality of this heap of crap.
My wife and I have a baby on the way (actually he was due 3 days ago, but he's a late arrival) and I am heavily relying on this vehicle to get us to and from the hospital 18 miles from my house...now GUESS WHAT!!....it's having problems again. Now it is not firing on all cylinders....GEESH!!!! OK, now I am just venting, lol.

Regards,
John

A buddy of mine has an E430 with the part no. 112 035 09 00 (BTR 99M10) marked on the harmonic balancer wheel behind the serpentine belt drive that is on the outside diameter of the harmonic balancer. His car has a slight vibration at about 45 miles per hour and, based on this thread, I looked his harmonic balancer over throroughly. It has what appears to be a nearly continuous network of small cracks at the center of the rubber, which is worse in some places than others. I was wondering if this is the precursor to a failure, or is it perhaps the flashing from the mold? In any case, I advised him to have a the service manager where he gets it worked on take a look. Anyone know, though, if this is the beginning of the end? The car has about 102,000 miles and is a 2000 model. Jim

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Own:
1986 Euro 190E 2.3-16 (291,000 miles),
1998 E300D TurboDiesel, 231,000 miles -purchased with 45,000,
1988 300E 5-speed 252,000 miles,
1983 240D 4-speed, purchased w/136,000, now with 222,000 miles.
2009 ML320CDI Bluetec, 89,000 miles

Owned:
1971 220D (250,000 miles plus, sold to father-in-law),
1975 240D (245,000 miles - died of body rot),
1991 350SD (176,560 miles, weakest Benz I have owned),
1999 C230 Sport (45,400 miles),
1982 240D (321,000 miles, put to sleep)