Hey all,
I know we are all extremely familiar with the dreaded clicking dashboard on our W209's. My buddy Konrad and I decided to finally pull out the dashboard of my 2003 CLK55 to repair this. I'm not going to sugarcoat anything, this was a major pain in the butt to get done. I am very glad that I did not have to replace every single motor in my car. I was able to search this forum and find tons of helpful information on how to do this job. I just wanted to give a little back to the community in the form of this helpful video, which should make things a LOT easier for anyone else about to get into this convoluted monster repair job.

First off some helpful part numbers!
Stepper Motors: Part: 203 820 16 42
Note: At my local Mercedes dealership here in San Diego, CA, they wanted $171 each ( BEFORE TAX ) for these stepper motors. There are 10 of them in my year CLK. That kind of $$$ was never going to happen. I highly recommend searching eBay for this part number. I was able to get a set of 12 stepper motors, i believe they came out of a 2005 W211 E500. I got the set of 12 for $85 shipped total on Ebay. In the end, I only needed one of the motors, my remaining 9 motors worked perfectly.

Stepper motor blend door lever kit ( this kit contains the two linkage arms that are the most common failure point in this system, both of mine needed to be replaced ) Part: 203 830 00 33
Note: AutohausAZ sells metal versions of these linkage arms for around $15, if you use their metal kit, you'l never have to worry about replacing these ever again. When you watch the video at I link at the end of this post, please note that these metal linkage arms were already installed before we filmed the video.

Stepper motor heater blend door linkage kit (this kit contains every other linkage in the HVAC system, other than the ones listed above) Part: 203 830 00 32
Note: You can get this kit for pretty cheap from any dealership, the entire kit was about $57 after tax, here in California. The price is pretty much the same as AutohausAZ and any other german car parts site, within a few bucks. I didn't need most things in this kit, I think i ended up using 4 of the12 included pieces. ( the gear wheel looking pieces, as you can see in the video )

I am not gonna go into too much detail here, since I was able to find all of this info by searching on this forum, but here is a really helpful video we made that should make this repair make a lot more sense. Here are some helpful links to get you started though

Awesome site with all kinds of w209 service manual info
https://benzbits.com/w209/

http://benzbits.com/w209/Ventilation...frostFlaps.pdf
http://benzbits.com/w209/Ventilation...twellMotor.pdf
http://benzbits.com/w203/RightFootwellFlapActuator.pdf


Quick video showing the locations of all of the stepper motors and a basic description of what each one does:


More detailed video with all kinds of helpful info. Please definitely watch this video before getting into this repair job, it will save you so much time!



Anyway that's all guys, i want to personally thank everyone on this forum that contributed their knowledge to the great hive mind. I couldn't have done this without all of your help. I hope this video helps others in return
-Z-

 

Are the arms/linkage different on W211?
I have a 2006 E500 with clicking noise .

 

Isn’t there a diagnostic key press that will tell you which motor it is ?

 

The motor might be good, just broken linkage …

 

In my case I am pretty sure it’s the foot well linkage / arm(s).
Does anyone have the part number for the arm?
2006 E500. I would like to have the parts before I tear it apart, ideally .
Thank you!