amgcb

So last night coming out of dinner I had a low coolant warning come on my dash. I checked under the vehicle, no puddles, and didn’t think anything of it because I just had my car transferred up north so I thought possibly the climate change was causing an issue. Fast forward to this morning the same warning illuminated when I turned the car over. I backed it up to check under the hood and sure enough a massive pool of coolant was sitting there, probably all of it.

To make matters worse my car is sitting on the 3rd floor of a parking garage and I don’t want to turn the vehicle over and risk engine damage for driving it out. MB Roadside’s 3rd party urgent.ly can’t properly dispatch anyone to go in and get the vehicle out, and no flat bed will make the clearance. At this point I am just going to call into the service department when they open at 7:30 and see what they suggest. If they say its OK to turn it over and drive it down (<5min) that’s what I’ll do.

Last time I was getting an oil change my service adviser mentioned there was a TSB on our vehicles for the mesh lining to protect the radiator. I am almost positive when this thing gets to the dealer they are going to tell me it sucked up a rock or some other piece of debris that punctured or damaged the radiator. With an active TSB bulletin for this fix, do you think this repair is something I should fight with them about being covered by MB? I know this happened with a GS350 I had almost 3 years ago and I had to pay that repair.

Has anyone else became a casualty of this yet and maybe have something to report on?

bobblehead

There was another thread or two in regards to this issue. Some had to pay and some ended up having it covered. It comes down to how willing your dealer goes the extra miles to get it covered for you

mmmamg

If tow truck can't get to the third floor I would fill in coolant again and just drive to the street where car will be loaded to the flat bed.
And yes, now when MB admitted poor design and officially fixing radiator protection I expect it will be free repair for you. Good luck.

amgcb

So the recall applies to both the far left and far right sides for vertical radiator protection.

my puncture was in the lower center on the flat radiator and they told me it does not apply to me.

$843 otd.

boo hoo

havenlaw

Just had the same issue Rock hit my driver side Aux Radiator Wasn't driving crazy or tailgating I didn't even know I had a leak until I found coolant all over the garage Ray Catena of Edison $1300 repair most of it labor. I called Mercedes and complained about only having 4k miles and the bumper design of the AMG's and how exposed the radiators are. They covered parts. Better than nothing. I ended up taking that $300 they saved me and brought Zunsport grill inserts Hopefully I wont have this issue again. Just unfortunate we spend all this money on our cars, we clear bra and ceramic coat to protect the paint, just to have the radiator destroyed by a pebble

E634Me

IMHO, this should be covered by auto insurance under comprehensive just like a rock to the windshield.

cyclrder

some 2018 cars did not come with the complete set of plastic protective shields. A recall is out there for this on the 2018. Mine were damaged 2 years ago and my dealer covered it but I was in touch with MBUSA too.

Corrado79

Looks like this might have happened to me too. Does anyone know which TSB would apply here?

Uber Wagon

Please get the TSB number - I got a puncture in the radiator from a small airborne nail. I drove to dealer (light was not on - I just spotted leak in garage). Light came on after sitting at dealer. Poor design

Call your insurance. It's comprehensive. Before you go to dealer....

Corrado79

How do I go about finding the TSB number?

HBerman

There was a recall notice in the US. Search under your VIN.

Corrado79

Aren’t recalls and TSB’s different?

E634Me

And, consider having a claim made against your comprehensive insurance for the repair. It is not an at fault claim and is the same basically as having a rock hit your windshield, and doesn't affect your rates - at least not in California. But I believe this is true for most insurance companies and states.

HBerman

The recall includes the TSB.

Service Campaign 2019040010 MAY19 – 2018 & 2019 213, 253 installed stone chip guard may allow stones to contact the radiator dealer will retrofit a protective grille. Approximately 3104 vehicles are affected.

Uber Wagon

Thanks - will advise if they did this repair when they replaced my radiator - I am not sure they did. Sigh.

CALBenzo

I had this happen within the first 2 months of ownership back in 2018, and cost around $2k to fix. My SA went to bat for me since the car was so new, and was able to get MBUSA to pay for half of the replacement. Sometime after, that recall or TSB came out, and when I was having the work done, I *****ed that I shouldn't have had to pay for the prior radiator replacement given this new recall/TSB. To my surprise, they reimbursed me.

arcticfox

I installed the Zunsport grills. I know it won't protect from everything, but its better than nothing.

Corrado79

Thank you for identifying that number. I will provide that to my SA, but he’s already said no TSB applies to my 2019 model, which I find odd since it’s one of the first 2019’s.

For those that went the insurance route, does that show up as a ding on your Carfax? I’m worried about resale value and maybe will just eat the cost to repair to avoid an insurance repair appearing on the Carfax.

Corrado79

Just ordered a pair. Don’t want this to happen again.

Corrado79

How about effect on resale / Carfax?

E634Me

Good question, I don't think that windshield replacements are reported and this is in the same category really. This isn't under collision but rather comprehensive coverage so probably reported differently.

Corrado79

Well, now my insurance carrier thinks this is a "collision" since my car apparently collided with a rock. Ridiculous. I guess when someone keys your car, the key collides with your car.

The adjuster tried to explain to me how hitting an animal (comprehensive for them) is somehow less of collision than my situation, but I was failing to follow the logic.

E634Me

It is only a collision if the rock was stationary. If the rock was laying on the ground stationary and you hit it, and it is large enough to puncture the radiator there would be a lot of other ancillary damage to the car such as a smashed front splitter and so on.

In order for a small rock to puncture the radiator it must be at least a foot off the ground. A 1/4 inch sized rock or whatever can't be a foot off the ground if it's stationary. Now depending upon how small they want to slice the time, they could claim it was stationary for a few microseconds at the peak of a bounce when it no longer had any vertical velocity but if they're slicing time that small, your car would have not have hit the rock because your effective velocity would be pretty much zero too.

It is a stupid claim on their part. It is no different than a pebble that hits your windshield. It isn't considered collision when the pebble or object that you hit is moving as you couldn't reasonably have avoided it - especially as in most cases you couldn't even see it.

Who is the insurance company? They need to be outed for their stupidity.

Corrado79

USAA, who usually has been good to me. I'm not done fighting with them over this, as I too think their logic is very flawed. In their defense, they have not see the vehicle -- or photos -- yet which will show no damage to the body of the vehicle.

Stay tuned.

amgcb

Really terrible that MB issued this TSB and it is a very fine line on what it applies to since this vehicle has several different radiators in the front. If you look at the actual pictures in the TSB, they are applying it to radiators that have a very small percentage of being impacted by road debris. IMO, they should apply this TSB to every single radiator at the front of the vehicle as its a design flaw.

Ultimately, I think if you are lucky enough to have this happen and you are close to the dealer you purchased the car from, they will probably be more forgiving in applying the TSB for you. In my situation, it was a dealer I've never done business with, and a tooth and nail fight to try and determine if it was covered or not - ultimately not being covered. The dealer couldn't even provide me a loaner vehicle.

I think an insurance claim would probably only complicate the matter even more as they might need to get an adjuster involved, and then even if they cut a check for the repair, don't you still owe a deductible, in some cases $500?