I recently moved to a house where I park my 2021 GLE outside. I used to live in a condo with underground parking. We had our first significant rainfall since moving and when I got in my car, I had noticed that the drivers side foot well, and back seat foot well (drivers side) were filled with water.

I thought I might have mistakenly left a window open or had the sunroof open a crack. I took a shop vac to it to get the water out. Then I made sure all doors and windows were closed and showered the car with a hose to see if it would leak. Sure enough, from behind the dashboard, near the hood latch, under the steering wheel, water was trickling in!

I know there was a recall on select 2020 models for this happening on the passenger side. But this car’s very new. Just got it early March, barely driven cause of Covid. It’s pretty bad. Thankfully, it’s not raining tonight, but it will rain tomorrow night. Hoping MB can take it in first thing in the morning and fix it and make sure none of the electrical was affected.

Anyone else have similar issues?

 

I have a 350 and the 12 volt battery is under the drivers seat. If the 450 is the same, you may have a battery compartment filled with water so you need to investigate that right away. While AGM batteries are sealed, they're not designed to operate submerged.

 

None here, but you should definitely get that checked out soon. Until then, cover the area with a tarp if rain is expected. I would guess it is somehow coming from the vents in front of the windshield.

 

Curious if the spot you parked on is on an incline? If so, was it nose down / up?

 

Slight incline, about 5-7 degrees. Nose up.

 

Thought I’d share an update. Mercedes could not take the car in this morning and could only take it in tomorrow morning. It’s supposed to rain tonight (light rain, less than 1mm) but none the less, I threw a tarp over the part of the truck that leads to the leak.

I’ll be sure to share what they find as soon as I find out.

 

There may also be electronics under the floor boards besides the battery. Maybe some in the front and also the rear. When the early builds didn’t have the air conditioner drain hoses vented properly there were some electronics failures. Also one user reported that his kid spilled a drink in the rear that caused more than $2000 in damage...don’t know which side. I intend to ask some questions my next trip to the Dealer.

 

Hey everyone, I got an up date.

It's due to a factory defect.

I'm in Canada, and the US version of the car include some antenna that connects under the front windshield. The Canadian version does not have this antenna (not entirely sure what the antenna is or what it's for). At the factory, they're supposed to fill that gap with polyurethane to seal it. Unfortunately, they didn't do a very good job with the seal and that's where the leak was happening.

Now to the damage. There was a lot of water in the floor. They lifted out the carpet of the car, and it was flooded by a few inches underneath in the frame. It had submerged a fuse box, and a battery that is under the drivers seat (as mentioned above). They've removed as much water as they could, have fans on it and are drying out the car. They will replace all of the electronics as well.

They also said they need to replace the front windshield. The model I have includes the front heated windshield and intelligent drive which supposedly has additional sensors and is not easy to swap. That'll take up to two weeks to get, so I'm left without a car for a few weeks. I didn't ask, but I will make a point to on Monday, about the electronics in the dash. I want to know if they were exposed to any water at all, and if they were, I'm going to request that they replace that too. I don't want any risk of corrosion or water damage coming back to haunt me in the future.

Now that I think about it, for a few weeks before the cabin flooding, I heard a sloshing sound when I'd take turns. The car hadn't been in a lot of rain storms then, but it had been through a car was a few times. I didn't think much of it, and thought maybe a half filled water bottle fell in the back seat somewhere. I now know that was water in the floor/frame.

They gave me a loaner and said I can keep it as long as I need. I'm grateful for that, it's a C300, but unfortunately, it's small. We upgraded to the GLE450 for the space. My wife and I have a new born. We care about safety and cargo space, and we worry about the safety of the baby and the challenge to fit the stroller and cargo in the smaller car. Do you guys think I could/should ask for a bigger vehicle?

Thanks for the feedback to this issue. I hope it doesn't happen to any of you all.

 

You should definitely ask for a comparable vehicle. My dealer has GLE 350 loaners.

 

The dealer is looking after it, that's good news. The 48V battery is under the carpet on the right/passenger side behind the front seat, so it seems like a good idea to ask them whether they have checked the 48V battery as well for water infiltration.

 

I'd absolutely ask for a bigger vehicle.

 

To give an update, the latest estimate has my car in the shop for several weeks. We lost most of last week due to confirmed covid cases at the dealership. I did ask about the well being of those that tested positive and thankfully, they're showing mild symptoms and should be ok.

The big hold up is in getting a new windshield.

The dealer network I deal with is, or at least was, corporate owned, and they only give out loaners through a partnership with Enterprise (which rents Mercedes). I was able to get a larger vehicle, but the largest Mercedes available is a GLC. They could've gotten me a larger non-luxury vehicle from enterprise, but they like to keep it in the family.

 

Good luck!

 

Update. They texted me to tell me the windshield came in sooner than expected, and that it would be ready to pick up yesterday. I couldn't make it yesterday so I told them that I'd be by today. They close at 6, so after work, I made my way over and arrived at 5:45pm to get the vehicle. My service advisor that I was speaking to wasn't there. He had left earlier in the day. I get into my car, looked down and noticed that the all weather mats were not put back in. I get out, grab the drivers side mat from the trunk, snap it in and drive away. I was tired, I wanted to get home. I look over and notice a used face mask on the passenger seat. Me and my family only own and use KN95's from Costco and this was a blue surgical mask. Definitely not one of ours.





I pull over into a plaza parking, and realize, the cars pretty dirty. Finger prints on the steering wheel, and a layer of dust on the dash. Definitely not wiped down or disinfected. I start to get pretty upset. They just had a small outbreak that required them to close for several days, and they're not even wiping cars down or making them presentable when picked up? It's not like they didn't have time, I picked it up a day after they had said I could pick it up.

Anyway, I decide to feel around underneath where the leak was to see if it was wet (it's pouring rain today). Not wet, but the cap for the diagnostics port is missing.



I pull out my hand sanitizer, clean up around me and drive home pretty pissed. They're closed right now. Never had to deal with something like this before. At a loss on what I should do...

The dealership is Mercedes Benz of Maple.

Should I tell my sales rep what happened? I'll try to speak to the service manager tomorrow. It's a corporate owned store I believe so I may even call Mercedes. This just sucks..

 

Just found out in another thread that there is no cover on the diagnostics port:

https://mbworld.org/forums/gle-class...bd-socket.html

I was wrong about that. But the used mask, that's brutal.

 

They're denying it's their mask and insisting that they cleaned and sanitized the car before returning it. I wasn't expecting a detailing or a car that looked new. I simply didn't expect to get the car back that looked like it hadn't been sanitized, and I certainly didn't expect to find a used mask on the passenger seat.

 

Maybe you need to burn the car if you're that terrified. Give it a break...

 

The OP might be rightfully concerned, especially, as he reported, the Dealer was closed for an outbreak.

But it's not a M-B issue, it's one between him and the Dealer. Probably less important to the Forum than the water leak.
Good that they got the windshield in sooner than expected, but not good to be lax on their sanitizing.

 

Slightly unrelated but I noticed today that the dealer had forgotten to put one of the sump guard bolts back after my service A.

Not only that but the clip that the missing bolt goes though (I'm sure it has a proper name) has been bent upwards so will now have to remove the under tray and sump guard to replace that before I can put a replacement bolt in.

Just makes me wonder if there is anything else they have missed.
Part of me is wondering if they tried to put the bolt in, pushed the clip out of place and couldn't be bother to remove it all again so just left it

 

spaceman - this won't sound good, but I think you are fortunate that they put it back together as well as they did. Any repair that requires disassembly of the interior is risky in terms of getting it all put back the way it was. There was an earlier case of someone with a rear window washer fluid leak that required headliner removal among other things and the result was not good when reassembled.

If they fixed the water leak - which I sincerely hope they did - and the interior is put back together as it should have been, then I would happy given what could have happened. (They should return it squeaky clean, but it just doesn't really happen that way, even though it should.) As for the mask - my dealer left a very nice (but used) Mercedes logo mask in the door of my GLE when it was being worked on last spring. I think it is just one of those odd things during a pandemic - no harm intended, and maybe a little gross, but nothing really to get upset about. (Especially now that real-world data tells us that covid transmission from contaminated surfaces is rare and unlikely.)

Anyway, here's to hoping your leak is fixed.

 

Yeah, you're right. I just poured over the work order and it was page after page of work. It was a crazy big job to replace so many items and put it all back together. So far, the dash and everything else looks ok, and it doesn't look like there's a leak anymore. I shouldn't lose sight of the monumental job they did over a stupid face mask in the car. It sucks that the leak happened. At least they seemed to have fixed it. I just hope that's it for issues related to the poor seal under the windshield, and factory defects in general. I do love the vehicle, and I want to go back to the good feeling I get driving it and not get clouded in bad vibes thinking about what really is a minor mishap in exceptional times (the mask).

 

Spaceman, I have a 2020 GLE450 with the same flooded area under the drivers side floorboard. It is a US car so the leak may not be the same as yours. But I have had water under the drivers floor board and water saturated electronics and terminal boards etc. I am curious if your repair extended into the wiring harness. There are a few connectors with numerous wires in a harness that appears to go up behind the front dash. With water in the connectors, water could migrate up the wires to later cause corrosion.

Is there a way for you to summarize the parts replaced so that I can compare to the repairs MB is performing on my GLE450? I am concerned for long term issues that may appear after a few years in the wiring etc.

I appreciate any help you can offer me.

 

Hi rleuner, sorry to hear about your misfortune. Supposedly, my car was from the US dealer network and transferred to Canada, so it may be the same leak.

The work order lists the following:

1 167-900-02-14 Control Unit
1 167-540-24-34 Fuse Box
1 167-670-50-00 Windshield
1 000-989-49-05 One-Component Adhesive

Is the wiring harness part of any of those?

 

I know they received a fuse block and possibly control device. I’ve hear no issue with the windshield, but no clear source of leak either. If harness was ordered, it should be separately stated. I’m going over to see what’s happening before it is all buttoned up. It’s also interesting that your car started as a US car. I guess I have some more research to do. I do believe I’ve seen something about replacing batteries also. Thanks for your help.

 

I have GLE 350 - 2021 model. My command console stopped working abruptly ! On sending it to service center, they investigated and said that carpet in the passenger seat is wet and has damaged the control unit. I live in toronto which has snow falls during winter. In order to protect my car, I have weather tech carpets too. I dont know how the carpet could get so wet to damage the control unit. My car is not even an year old. Mercedes is asking me to pay for new control unit (i.e CAD 8K) and is not covered in warranty! This is so frustrating . Anyone else facing this issue ?