31st Jan 2005, 07:33

Perhaps there is a design problem with US E classes. The air intake on my UK one is almost at the top of the engine bay. I would have to drive mine through a 4ft deep river to encounter the same problem.

13th Jan 2006, 15:09

I am driving a ten year old Toyota Corolla and have never had a problem with it. I've driven it in -30 degree weather and temperatures as hot as 106 degrees. I've gone through more floods than I care to think about and never has it ever let me down. I use it as a utility truck and have even hauled home a pool table on top not to mention all the building materials to finish my 2000 square foot basement. It has never, ever stalled, failed to start and even has the original muffler on it. Other than oil changes, new tires, brakes and a new battery once I have never put any other repairs into this vehicle. It has absolutely no rust and has been an incredible car. I once owned an older Mercedes 240D and put on 500,000 miles on the car before I sold it for almost what I paid for it. I also have a 2001 Hyundai XG300 with 80,000 miles on it and absolutely nothing has ever gone wrong with this car either. Perhaps I've been just plain lucky. The only work ever done on the Hyundai is regular oil changes. I've been looking at 2 -3 year old Mercedes e_series, but if they aren't trouble free then maybe I had better stick with the Toyotas and Hyundais. The Hyundai is comfortable, but obviously not the same class as the Mercedes, but a whole lot cheaper and with the 10 year warranty it's hard to go wrong. Eventually I'll probably buy another Mercedes, just wish I didn't hear about engine design issues.

16th Feb 2006, 17:41

I have a UK spec E-class which has the air intake at bonnet (Hood) height. In fact all E-class have this, so someone has got facts wrong. In which case 'the small puddle' must have been able to flood around 2 litres of water in through an 8cm hole, behind a grille, about 75cm off the ground, and bypassed a huge filter chamber and punched a hole through the filter. Hmmm. Sounds like someone took a ford at high speed to me...

Mercedes are very well designed and engineered, but they are not infallible.

20th Mar 2006, 19:00

I would like to go for a MB E320 1999, does any one have any bad exp with this? or what is your recommendation?

10th Apr 2006, 14:56

I once drove a 1980 Audi 4000 through flooded streets and water locked the engine. Removed the spark plugs and cranked the water out of the cylinders. Sprayed EVERYTHING with ether. Car started right up and after the steam dissipated, there were no more problems. Why on earth would you have to replace the engine???!!! heck, an old mechanics trick is to suck water into the air intake to steam clean the carbon from the cylinders. I think if you had taken the car to the right mechanic it could have been fixed for very little.

8th Mar 2007, 07:51

It's called hydro lock and wil happen to any car that sucks water into the combustion chamber. On low compression engines, like on an old petrol engine, this is less of a problem and if you are lucky you'll only blow the head gasket. But on high compression diesels you'll bend the connecting rod or even damage the crankshaft and you'll need a new engine block.