TuneTime

About this time of the year... leaves fall off trees with other debris... Clog the drains in the wiper cowl and flood the entire passenger side floor... from front to back... Rear Sam (fuse box) under the rear seat is sitting in 3in of water.... carpets are Soaked and stinky, the back half of the car is inop... Interior has to be gutted and cleaned/dried.... what a costly pain in the ***...

You can see the rust marks already forming on the silver floor....

sleewell

and to think people laugh at me when they see me out with a tweezer pulling out leaves every week...

i bet that car still has some odors after all that work, some things you just cant get out.

donjuan45i

whats the best way to make sure they are clean or to clean them out? my car is in the garage but still would like to make sure.

TuneTime

open the hood.... look on the passenger side under the wiper... there is a large duct with a grill on it.. (as seen in picture).... See the dirty hole in the bottom outer side allll the way on the bottom.... that hole gets clogged and that area fills to a point to which it spills over inside itself and enters the cabin.... So a visual inspection is usually fine... unless there is stuff in there.. then an air gun or a long screwdriver to push the crap through is good....

Fraser

Holy...

benz_addict

yup thanks for the headsup I just checked mine last week, winter is coming that means snow so guys do this more often now. It will save you thousands.

02S430

how do you get it off or you can only use a long screwdriver

Quadcammer

lol, I used my 722.6 dipstick tool. Its perfect for it

scarybary

WHERE ARE THESE DRAINS?

Oxygen

OPEN YOUR EYES AND READ THE ****ING THREAD AND YOU WILL FIND YOUR ANSWERS!

TuneTime

thx....

MBS430

TuneTime, Thanks much for the heads up!!

S500Sport

Dont need a dipstick tool, the mesh cover pops off.

Quadcammer

thats fine, but if you don't wnat to pop the mesh off, and want to reach down all the way to the bottom of the drain, the 722.6 dipstick tool works very well.

KevinJ

TuneTime, thanks for the pictures and thread.

I have a similar problem on my S500 where there was around 2 inches of water in the rear seat area, covering the entire fuse box and other components.

My resulting issue is that my right registration light stays on permanently, if you remove the bulb the left one flickers permanently. If you remove both, my local trusted garage told me the fault travels to the side lights...?

Link to thread (https://mbworld.org/forums/s-class-w...te-lights.html)

With this car in your thread and others you have come across, do you find that drying these components out is sufficient or do you have to replace components in this rear seat area?

Any help or further discussion on this would be most appreciated.

EDIT (Just to add that I had the blocked drain plug problem over 3 years ago in which the front was flooded and the SRS light came on and I also recently removed the 2 inches of water from the rear seat area, but there maybe a little more around).

Thanks

ekogutpl

there is one way of salvaging these components if they have been flooded. once you find out its flooded try not to use any electronics in the car at all, take out the flooded module and try to dry it out. most of the time water doesnt damage the component, its the short circuit that fries it when there is water present and its being used. that what happened to me and i dried it out as quickly as possible and all is well now

KevinJ

Many thanks ekogutpl

I shall try and remove all possible components from this area over the weekend and dry them out.

Would you know which component would control the lights though?

And also, how would you dry them out, simply in a warm room or using a fan heater type (i.e. hair dryer) or take apart and use Electrical cleaner?

Thanks in advance

ekogutpl

the module that controls the rear lights is located with the fuze box, unscrew the fuzebox and when you have it in your hand turn it up side down and there will be connections going into the back of it, the part that the connections connect to is actually the rear SAM which controls the whole rear of the car( trunk, taillights, fuel gauge, etc.) and this computer disconnects from the fuze box, the place where it joins there should be a sticker connecting the two parts and just pull them apart and clean out the connections if there is any water or corrosion, i would recomend getting connection cleaner from your local parts store to clean it out. you cant really take apart the computer so the best solution is just letting it dry out in a warm area like you said, ill try to post pictures once i get a chance

ibeforreal

Thanks for the haeads up. Even though my car is always in the garage I'm checking mine right now.

badbishop

Thanks for the heads up. I just checks my S350 and the drain pipe was blocked. It has been raining here for about 2 days. I had about 5 cm of water in the well. Luckily no water reached the cabin.

m4xm1l10n

Did check both of my rides all clean here!!!! thanks for the heads up

gqmagic

Happened to my E last year, I used to park under a Eucalyptus tree (no more) that dropped thin leaves and clogged the cowl under the hood just like the above pictures. It shorted out my PSE pump, causing the lights to stay on, alarm continuously sounding, etc.

Was able to let my car dry out sufficently and replaced the pump from Duval Motors.

Do not continuously park under shedding trees, get a Noah Car Cover instead

naijaman

Dude...that's a good look. I'll check it out, even though my car stays garaged 6 days a week.

KevinJ

Well, today I removed some components from the car from under the rear passenger right seat.

I removed the grey square component which is attached to it's metal frame housing still, along with a small white clear plastic box, all connectors removed and left in car.

This grey square component has connectors for heated seats and one going to the CAN?

There are also a couple of boxes attached to the underside of the metal frame.

Picture below, please can someone name these components and what they do :-





I also removed this part which I think is the rear SAM and took it apart from the rear fuse box (which is left in the car with the 2 million wires).

Picture below, please can someone confirm this component and what it does (hope the lights as mentioned before)





And finally this small solid metal looking component with BOSCH labelled on it, this was the most wet and the connectors were dripping when I removed it.

Picture below, please can someone name this component and what is does :





I have left all the wiring in the car along with the rear fuse box, to dry away from the base of the seat area and left lots of absorbant towelling to get any remaining water and to hopefully dry out some of the wet wiring.

If drying these out does not work, at least I know I can change the part if need be, but which one of the above components does the lights related to, paticurlarly the registration lights?

I have been told the rear SAM which I think is the part I detached from under the rear fuse box in the second picture?

Thanks in advance.

DrJfrmLA

Another simple fix is to use "canned air" like you use to clean computer keyboards. They usually come with a straw-like attachment that you can put in the drain hole and blow it out. The nice thing about the aerosol can is you don't have enough air pressure to blow a hole in the tubing or blow the tubing off the plastic drain pan. You put 150 psi through an air gun into that plastic, you'll have bits scattered over four states.