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I am wondering if anyone has ideas on what could be melting the grill on my 23 GLE53. This part was replaced 10 days ago, and the new part has the same damage again. The dealer is checking with MB engineering. The shop foreman is saying it's not the engine doing this (which is rather good if so). They are suspecting a heat source is melting it, but there is no such heat source. They do not think an automatic carwash is doing it either, but that is the only other outside influence that I can determine. Do those rollers spin at such a speed as to melt plastic? The dealership has a carwash, and I would think if they caused this sort of damage they would not be confused about what happened. Thanks for any thoughts.
Wow, that is strange. You didn't pull up too close to Jay Leno's jet-turbine powered motorcycle at a stoplight, did you? JK
Hope you find out and post the results if you do.
Nope, I work from home 4 days a week and my car is parked in an outside parking lot at work that is gated with security. So far everyone is stumped by this.
Do your neighbors/coworkers have a highly polished cybertruck?
But in all seriousness, My first thought is any reflective surface, since the areas small maybe even a mirror something that happens to focus the sun on that particular surface. Or a stainless steel anything with a concave surface that happened to one day focus sun onto your grill.
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Looks like it's pointing about 45 degrees up and directly at the driver's door area... hmm, you didn't happen to see a strange looking French guy sitting on a nearby grassy knoll per chance?
I would guess with the angle and heat source from the right to the left, and by the looks of it heated from the outside, it’s most definitely a high intensity light source. If it’s the same mark as last time, I would think it would have to happen in an area where you park very consistently in the same spot, like maybe your garage? Whatever it is it’s close to combustion temperatures so I would investigate this quickly.
I'm not parking near any reflective source however. I've showed the dealer a picture of my garage. It's basically a wall with an east facing window, which has a blind on it. Does everyone here agree it's not the carwash? https://washvillecarwash.com. I just stopped by Washville and the manager said it's not the carwash, which washes using cold water.
Thank you for everyone's interest and curiosity. There is very, very limited opportunity for this to be vandalism based on where my car is parked at home and at work in a secured parking lot. And twice, no way. This grill is 11 days old. It was fine last Friday and I noticed the melted spots on Sunday after having driven 75 miles round trip on the highway. There is no damage on the opposite side of the 3 affected spokes, nor is there any damage on the rest of the grill. Why would a carwash damage the right but not the left? That makes the carwash sort of a rule-out. The only thing in front of the window is my Ariens snowblower. It's been there for years, 365 days a year. I will have this car a year on March 18th. All of a sudden the snow blower is culprit; I don't think so. Steve
I feel like I shouldn't have responded.
Apologizing in advance, but car washes aren't symmetrical.
And it only takes a few minutes for concentrated sunlight to warp plastic. Maybe seconds.
Why do you say that? Thank you for your ideas. I went through the carwash today, and no change. So I will just give the MB engineers to come back with their solution. If it means me footing the expense of a new grill again, I will say no. The spots are not very noticeable if you are not zooming in, and I will see what happens in the months to come. The grill can be replaced at any point.
Look carefully at the picture. Zoom in. I see spots and streak marks leading into the damage. Could also be coming from inside out. Still looks like chemical damage rather than heat.
Look carefully at the picture. Zoom in. I see spots and streak marks leading into the damage. Could also be coming from inside out. Still looks like chemical damage rather than heat.
I don’t see strikes everywhere and I can’t understand while it would melt at some location and leave only a light strike at another location. Very interesting problem!
All the horrible jokes aside, it obviously seems like a crap mixture of plastic/compound. Could be some sort of ingredient mix up or just plain negligence....either way, MB will be footing the bill
All the horrible jokes aside, it obviously seems like a crap mixture of plastic/compound. Could be some sort of ingredient mix up or just plain negligence....either way, MB will be footing the bill
You have a good dealer. I'm surprised they will cover it as it does not look like a manufacturing defect. It is not a cheap fix. I had my grill replaced on my GLE AMG 63 S. The grill is not cheap and the bumper, etc needs to be removed. I had a squirrel go through my grill at speed......
So they did not remove the bumper cover to replace the grill the first time. But, MBUSA is asking the dealer to remove the entire bumper cover, take pictures of the inside of it, and reasemble it. I have expressed my concerns about this to the dealer and am waiting for a response. This is because of a couple of quality control issues I haven't aired out here. But, the bumper is going to need to be refinished in part because of a scratch. So why not have the body shop remove the bumper, take the pictures and take it off once ?
Those streaks or spots further up on the spokes are possibly water spots from the carwash, but I understand all are searching for a cause. I don't think they are anything harmful.
So I am waiting for answers as I mentioned. Isn't this fun ?
Folks, I am on hold until my car goes into the body shop on March 25th. At that time, the dealer will go over and take the pictures MB requested, and my number will be removed once by experts in that work (MB authorized collision center). They are quite backed up, but that's okay. It will give time to see if this changes any. Meanwhile, back to hand washing even in winter, yes !
A neighbor at my old house had a similar issue with mysterious melting of a black rear bumper on his 4Runner. He had the bumper replaced and sure enough it happened again. He could not figure it out since he parked in the same location for years with no issue.
He eventually found the cause by pure luck one day: a neighbor across the street installed a small metallic wind chime that had mirrored surfaces that would reflect and focus the sun but only on calm days and only if the wind chime was in a certain position. He kindly asked the neighbor to remove it and the problem went away.
Maybe you can get that super strong 3M adhesive and put one of these BT temp sensor logs on there for a while to see when this might be happening:
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