K-A

I'm sure I'm not the only one with this situation. Since I've had my car, I've noticed a helpless situation in which water, etc. dries up at the very bottom of the front (and possibly rear) door windows. There's a relatively large gap between the door interior trim piece and the window (could stick your finger through it almost) with the 211's, and I think that's why we can see the nastiness that forms on the window-bottoms. It looks basically like an algae-ish film forming.

Was this just a huge look-over by M-B when designing these cars?

Grnhilndr-2

If you believe algae is growing in you door bottoms, I suggest you treat the problem by adding Chlorox. You can dilute thechlorox or add full strength....it will kill the Algae. If I understand you correctly, the Algae that forms is the result of trapped water, might consider drilling a couple of holes in the bottom of the door.

K-A

Actually I don't think it's really algae (at least I hope it's not), however I think it's the best way to describe the look of what's going on at the very bottom of those windows (not the doors). It seems hard to believe that any 211 wouldn't have this problem with the way they designed how the interior trim piece has such a large gap from the window (allowing us to see the very bottom of the window). Unless mine is different....

Anyone else notice this on their cars?

lig

Are you talking about green stuff on the weatherstripping on the top of the doorsill?

My wife's Infiniti is parked outside and it developed some of that funky green stuff. I used some kind of "black restore" kind of product made for trim and it cleaned it off and made the trim black again.

I forgot what the name of the stuff was though.

dvmak

Your not the only one noticing this .. had a thread on it last week. It's visible when the window is up and looking at the very bottom of the glass .. the portion just below the outside weather-stripping.

Guess you can try cleaning it .. maybe an old t-shirt on a thin piece of metal?

The other poster misunderstood your issue thinking the algae was inside the door .. at the bottom. But I hope he was joking about drilling holes in the door.

K-A

Exactly! WTF was M-B thinking with that?

dvmak

Took another look today and realized it's not really an issue. Both sodes of the glass do have the rubber seal it's just that in the MB the inside rubber seal sits below the door panel. If you look down into the opening you can see it.

On my Volvo the rubber seal on the inside sits above the door paneling so you cant see the glass below the exterior seal. If I pull it back the glass has the same junk on the bottom ...

220S

K-A, you'll see this sort of thing in most cars. Moisture gets trapped; it'll clear up. We just had two big storms come thru right in a row and so it got pretty damp out there. Now that it's getting drier out, it'll get better.

But we live in a climate where moisture/mildew issues aren't really a problem.

K-A

The only thing is that I haven't noticed this in other cars, since the weather stripping and interior panels usually sit snug against the windows to where you can't see the area's that trap the dirt, water, etc. that are hard to reach. The 211 has this situation going on at the door area where there's this huge gap between the interior door panel and window, so you can see the inside the panel where the dirt, etc. gets dried up on the bottom of the window as dvmak said. It just seems M-B could have covered that area up so we wouldn't see the unsightly view of the naked window bottom (which is basically unreachable to clean).

jdupa

same here, MY 06, and I don't believe this is any organic growth, just dirt/dust trapped behind the glass. Seen this on MY07 dealer service car. Very unsightly and hard/impossible to clean. Would window/door disassembly be required?

K-A

Exactly. I think it's just something we have to live with as it's about impossible to reach, and at a certain point the stains are probably embedded in the window-bottoms.

jdupa

this is how it looks from inside:

K-A

Yup, that's the culprit!

K-A

Freaking M-B left such a big gap there, why couldn't they just get a little nice strip of some material and put it over that?

dvmak

In a way it looks nicer without the rubber strip as found on other cars ..

jdupa

Found this info on the internet, may help with cleaning affected areas.
MODS - I don't know if this is copyrighted, please delete if inappropriate.

K-A

True that it does IMO look better without some cheesy plastic or rubber piece, especially considering the 211 uses all nice quality materials IMO. But there has to be a way they could have put something nice and classy there, while keeping the quality integrity of the interior IMO.

gaazmon

Maybe it's not green, but cause the regular glass is green then it looks green. I bet in the sport version with the blue solexx glass the algae looks blue. I'll check mine and see if I see anything.

Yes, more rain coming this way, stay tuned Los Angeles

I can't wait for the summer... the girls just wear less clothing