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Hi there I will get straight to the point and make this short.
I purchased a 2012 S550 from an auction and it was listed as flooded.
After taking delivery of the vehicle and inspecting it I found out that the front Sam module has caught on fire at some point and it melted some of the wiring for the engine harness and the body harness I don't see any other damages granted I haven't looked deep enough. Now my question is do any of you had an experience with water damage on an S Class should I repair these damages and start spending money on this vehicle or I would be better off selling it for parts?
Any advice will be greatly appreciated
Given SAM damage, also check front pre-fuse box. Front SAM part # 2215402650, front pre-fuse 2215406850. See attachments.
Thank you so much for these informations this will be very helpful if I started digging into this thing, also the car doesn't have power unless I put a jumper box or a battery charger on the battery and as soon as I take it off everything shuts off is that a sign of failed prefuse box?
so many things canbe bad...
Engine, tranny, differential (transfer case if 4 matic) could have water in it and have rust formed on parts making them junk or in need of rebuild.
Pretty much all electrical modules that were under water are now junk or will be soon.
How high was water?
frommy experience of living thru Hurricane katrina and the wave of flooded cars that hit the used market years after.... I have learned there is no good flooded car as you may thing it is repaired today but next week something else could fail.
Everything depends on how deep water was and how long it sat in water and was it fresh water, brackish or salt water.
So even if you sell for parts some of those could be junk.
Hi there I will get straight to the point and make this short.
I purchased a 2012 S550 from an auction and it was listed as flooded.
After taking delivery of the vehicle and inspecting it I found out that the front Sam module has caught on fire at some point and it melted some of the wiring for the engine harness and the body harness I don't see any other damages granted I haven't looked deep enough. Now my question is do any of you had an experience with water damage on an S Class should I repair these damages and start spending money on this vehicle or I would be better off selling it for parts?
Any advice will be greatly appreciated
Seems to me your first step should be to pull all of the codes and proceed based on that.
would be nice w additional pertinent info like miles and the rest of the condition of the car.
The car is in a great shape few imperfections on the body like small dents and scratches but nothing major and the interior is immaculate it has 39,000 miles it looks like that it was well taken care of
so many things canbe bad...
Engine, tranny, differential (transfer case if 4 matic) could have water in it and have rust formed on parts making them junk or in need of rebuild.
Pretty much all electrical modules that were under water are now junk or will be soon.
How high was water?
frommy experience of living thru Hurricane katrina and the wave of flooded cars that hit the used market years after.... I have learned there is no good flooded car as you may thing it is repaired today but next week something else could fail.
Everything depends on how deep water was and how long it sat in water and was it fresh water, brackish or salt water.
So even if you sell for parts some of those could be junk.
Good luck
Thanks for your input I really don't know how far the water got up. I don't have any experience with water damage but I looked under the car and I don't see any signs of salt so it must be freshwater the car was flooded in Houston Texas and they get a lot of rain and some areas get flooded
Constantly I don't think all the modules has gone bad because when I put the jumper box on the battery the car weirdly turns on like it was on Accessory mode even though the key is not in there and even if I put the key and turn it it doesn't do anything. But I can turn on the interior lights I can move both the seats in all directions the command system is working normally but I can't access some of the stuff because it tells me to turn on the ignition, the radio works and all the speakers the tail lights work and the brake lights work the trunk release button works so that tells me that there is a lot of modules that is still intact, from what I can tell from the Carfax reports the car was flooded January of 2019 and I have no idea if it was running or sitting still at the time.
At this point I'm really having a difficult time to decide whether I should go forward with the repairs or I should bail out right now without spending extra money on this vehicle.
To replace the engine wiring harness and the body wiring harness and the Sam module that's about $1,500 and about 30 hours of my time. And who knows what's going to happen then. the car could start and run just fine or absolutely nothing will change
At this point I'm really having a difficult time to decide whether I should go forward with the repairs or I should bail out right now without spending extra money on this vehicle.
To replace the engine wiring harness and the body wiring harness and the Sam module that's about $1,500 and about 30 hours of my time. And who knows what's going to happen then. the car could start and run just fine or absolutely nothing will change
If you want my advice... and please don't take this the wrong way... dump it. You don't sound like you have the experience and expertise to do this by yourself, and by the time you either A.) pay someone else to do it, or B.) spend the time and money trying to figure it out on your own... you could very easily spend at least what a nice used S-class would have cost you. I mean, unless you picked this thing up for a couple grand and don't mind making it a hobby project, probably best to cut your losses -- or part it out and maybe break even or make a buck or two.
A car that was in water is bad enough. A flooded car that then caught fire is just going to be a time and money suck.
Network attachment is for pre-facelift > 2009, 2010 > has one main battery and aux @ dash nevertheless, attachment gives you an idea of network and possible damage areas also attached all fuse assignments.
Last edited by konigstiger; May 20, 2019 at 10:04 AM.
If you want my advice... and please don't take this the wrong way... dump it. You don't sound like you have the experience and expertise to do this by yourself, and by the time you either A.) pay someone else to do it, or B.) spend the time and money trying to figure it out on your own... you could very easily spend at least what a nice used S-class would have cost you. I mean, unless you picked this thing up for a couple grand and don't mind making it a hobby project, probably best to cut your losses -- or part it out and maybe break even or make a buck or two.
A car that was in water is bad enough. A flooded car that then caught fire is just going to be a time and money suck.
Thank you for your advice.
Although I have zero experience with Mercedes because this is the first Mercedes I ever bought but I have a really good experience with BMWs I owned five of them in the past and still on a 5 Series and I have done major work like rebuilding an entire engine and rebuilding a transmission and I successfully diagnosed and repaired hundreds of problems with BMWs currently between me and my family we own five of them and they never been to a mechanic because I do all of the work by myself.
One of the big reasons that I haven't started tearing this vehicle apart it's because I really hate working on electronics and wiring because it's an endless rabbit hole.
Also unfortunately I didn't buy this vehicle cheap so far I spent a little over 11 Grand including shipping and auction fees.
During my whole life I only drove BMW sport suspension and manual gearbox so they're really rough. I wanted something nice and comfortable to cruise around in the weekend or to go to Trips with the family, after extensive research on the 7 Series I found out that it had a lot of problems with the engines so I settled on the S-class I think it's the perfect car for what I need but I don't have 30 grand to blow on a low miles one
Last edited by Kevin Sahib; May 19, 2019 at 04:02 PM.
There is a good reason why an insurance company decided to total this vehicle. There are a lot of electronic modules all over the vehicle and many may still be damp inside which will lead to eventual costly failures.
Your best chance of recovering the money spent may be to sell individual body parts from the car. Headlights alone sell for several hundred dollars. The bumpers are worth hundreds. Same for the windshield, hood, and trunk lid. Even the doors might have value. Is there any way to find out how deep the water was? Any parts above the water value should be undamaged.
Another approach might be to buy a another vehicle that has collision damage that does NOT have significant structural damage and is still drive-able Even a minor front end collision at low speed without even damaging the radiator can require several thousand dollars in parts which you could salvage from your existing vehicle.
Last edited by steveb9771; May 20, 2019 at 03:27 AM.
Houston flooded cars can be fresh or brackish or salt depending on what part of city they were in.
HEre what yo ushould do.
find costs for every module on the car, engine and body harness (basically everything electrical) and add it up...
IF lights went under you will need new ones eventually specially if LED or Bi-xenon.
Seat motors might be toast too or toast soon enough.
An option is take car apart and test each electrical part to give you an idea what $$$ you are looking at versus cars retail value.
Then look to see what the good parts would bring you if you broke it down.
And as always remember this car witll have SALVAGE title which makes it worth way less on open market .
I just googled 2012 S550 and used prices run $17-35K depending on mileage and options.
My opinion is dump it or sell for parts as you will spend more to get it to run then it is ever worth and if you one buy another used one.
Good Luck - and if you do take this on as a fun project start a thread and post up on progress with pics.
Houston flooded cars can be fresh or brackish or salt depending on what part of city they were in.
HEre what yo ushould do.
find costs for every module on the car, engine and body harness (basically everything electrical) and add it up...
IF lights went under you will need new ones eventually specially if LED or Bi-xenon.
Seat motors might be toast too or toast soon enough.
An option is take car apart and test each electrical part to give you an idea what $$$ you are looking at versus cars retail value.
Then look to see what the good parts would bring you if you broke it down.
And as always remember this car witll have SALVAGE title which makes it worth way less on open market .
I just googled 2012 S550 and used prices run $17-35K depending on mileage and options.
My opinion is dump it or sell for parts as you will spend more to get it to run then it is ever worth and if you one buy another used one.
Good Luck - and if you do take this on as a fun project start a thread and post up on progress with pics.
If I do get this car fixed I don't care how much is value is going to be on the market because I won't sell it. I'm hesitant to start this project because of the unknown damages but I really have high hopes cuz like I mentioned above a lot of the modules seems to be working like the seats speakers interior lights tail lights and brake lights command system and other small things even though the front Sam module is literally toasted. I guess my first step would be to replace the Sam module and fix the melted wires and see what happens side note I haven't rotated the engine yet cuz I didn't have time to do it I was out of town this past week. Do you know if module need to be programmed after replacement
There is a good reason why an insurance company decided to total this vehicle. There are a lot of electronic modules all over the vehicle and many may still be damp inside which will lead to eventual costly failures.
Your best chance of recovering the money spent may be to sell individual body parts from the car. Headlights alone sell for several hundred dollars. The bumpers are worth hundreds. Same for the windshield, hood, and trunk lid. Even the doors might have value. Is there any way to find out how deep the water was? Any parts above the water value should be undamaged.
Another approach might be to buy a another vehicle that has collision damage that does NOT have significant structural damage and is still drive-able Even a minor front end collision at low speed without even damaging the radiator can require several thousand dollars in parts which you could salvage from your existing vehicle.
The insurance company will almost automatically total any vehicle that it's been under water even if it still runs and drives because they can't assis the damages unless they take the whole vehicle apart. And I'm aware that if I sell individual Parts off of the vehicle I will probably make more money than what I paid for it but the problem is I'm going to spend more time than I would fixing the vehicle and I really want to fix this vehicle
If your a very well versed auto mechanic type even some DIYers are included, and have many of the proper tools meaning electronic stuff too. The price for any flooded car should not be more than $300. especially if it was over the fenders or even got to the interior. If you are not qualified to do the work, you wasted the $ on it.
i have an update, i still have high hopes that i can fix this vehicle.
i took the cooling fan out and rotated the engine, it rotated just fine that means a hydro-lock elimination. i also checked the oil and no signs of water. i tore up the interior i took the seats out and the carpet, there's a minimal signs of water but i couldn't fine any damages. now the bad part, i took the front sam module out and i had a deeper look at the burned area and it's not terrible but some of the electric plugs are very damaged and need to be replaced they were melted so bad that they got stuck on the sam module, i literally had to use a angle grinder to separate them from the board. but the good thing is the wires are not that bad and i think i can fix them without replacing the whole harness, now the question is : where can i buy these individual plugs. i also took the pre fuse box and it looked good no problems. this looks horrible
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