On Friday I went out to get into my 2015 ML400 and got a red error about power steering failure. Had it towed in, and got the call today. A rodent had chewed up the harness between the power steering computer and the rack. I had to approve the $585 repair to find out if the rack is affected. If it is, this will quickly be turned into an insurance claim as a steering rack replacement entails removing the engine. I'm starting to rethink my ML400 purchase.

Has anyone else hear of problems like this? The car was parked outside overnight. I do not have a garage to park it in so that isn't an option. I live in suburban Dallas area so not in a rural environment.

 

Rack replacement does not require engine removal, only front diff, but the rack is almost $5k last time I priced one so still worth going through insurance.

Sucks, but rodent damage does happen and is nasty to deal with. We had one get into the rear wiring of a brand new 217 Cab, did tons of damage to the wiring behind the rear seats. Adds up fast.

 

If Insurance gets involved I'm sure they will try to push me to move it to anywhere but the dealer. However it is still under warranty, so in speaking to my service advisor they have been through this numerous times. Either way I'm not getting my ML400 back for a while.

 

I live in suburban Dallas as well. And rats and squirrels are very prevalent. A while back, I opened up the hood of my 2014 ML 350 bluetec, found nut shells, feces and urine everywhere. I was fortunate that they only used the engine bay for nesting and did not chew on anything, but I installed 2 rat boxes in the front and back yard. Couple of days later, the wife noticed a dead animal on the road near our mailbox, she thought it was a dead squirrel, I went and looked and it turned out to be rats. I use plural, because I found a second one also dead on top of the mailbox as well. So the the 2 rat boxes did their job, and have not had any issues since then.

I also looked under the hood of our other 2 vehicles (Nissan Leaf and Subaru Forester), again these 2 vehicles also had signs of their presence, and again we were fortunate they did chew on any wiring!

So I would suggest that you buy some of these bait boxes and leave them around.

 

I will be putting out numerous rat boxes. Several of the homes around here have issues because the owners are from other countries and think have rats in their attics is not a bid deal.

 

Wow, and they probably feed them as well to increase the rat population!!!

 

I'm guessing India 'cause they worship them, or Asia 'cause they harvest them for supper LOL.

I heard that Rat a L'Orange makes for some mighty fine eatin'