Well my warranty has been up for some time now, and the dealership costs have gone up on their labor rates, plus I'm back in school, so taking my car to the dealership for Service A and B and other miscellaneous maintenance is not really a first option anymore. So I'm gonna start doing the work myself! I'm a girl, but I don't mind getting my hands dirty and I've always had a fascination with how a car runs and the mechanics/engineering behind it. Particularly true engineering, German. I already replaced my engine air filters myself, which was not easy! I mean, the process itself is, but disconnecting the flex hoses was hard! I thought they were molded on! And it looks like I had mice living in my engine filters! Yuck! So I'm gonna work on putting some screen mesh at the end on the bottom so they can't get in there. We'll see.

 

My CEL came on...so I took it to the dealership, found out it's my thermostat, which they quoted me at $460. I looked online and the OE thermostat for my car is about $150, so basically about $250 for labor. Seeing all this involved, I suppose it's worth it, with a warranty on the labor and parts. But still, that's pretty deep and cutting into my Spring tuition for school. Does anyone know how long this process actually takes?

 

The thermostat housing itself is not hard to get to. should take you maybe 1-2 hours if you have the right tools.

https://mbworld.org/forums/attachmen...ostat-w203.pdf

That should help you and be more then sufficient