Just an FYI for anyone who has a similar situation.

If your car goes through any deep water (puddle, wake from a semi-trailer, etc.) and stalls, DO NOT TRY TO RESTART the engine. The chances are that you have ingested water into your cylinders and if you try to start the engine you can bend a rod or some other nasty thing WILL occur.

If you are mechanically inclined, remove ALL of your spark plugs at the same time and turn the key in the ignition to turn over the engine. This will cause the pistons to pump out any water in the cylinders through the spark plug holes and will get rid of the water in your engine.

After you re-install the spark plugs, change your oil as it is probably water contaminated too.

Hopefully after this your car should be alright.

 

Great advise...........

 

Wayne,

If you go with the LKQ option, you have several valuable parts on your old engine that can help you recover some of the costs.

The heads, if undamaged will fetch a good price, The valve covers and intake manifold can be polished (I did mine and they look sweet!) - you could then have the shop put the polished goodies on your new engine, then have your old items polished and sell them for some $$.

You could hang on to the starter, alternator, etc.. for spare parts.

The engine block, exhaust manifolds, etc..if undameged will also fetch a nice price.

Here is a link to a place that might purchase the core's from your removed engine.

Good Luck

http://www.mercedesengines.net/

 

Is it possible to get a Startech 6.1L for 19K by itself?? Could give the SRT guys a run for their money

 

Guys,
I'm sorry it's taken so long for me to update this.

State Farm paid for everything related tot he motor damage. They did it under my comprehensive policy. I paid my $100.00 deductable. They did the following:

New Windshield (damaged by rocks in the water that went over the car)

Replacement Motor from LKQ - paperwork certifying that it the vehicle it came out of only had 2281 miles on it. (They even sent me a picture of the Odo cluster powered on showing the mileage.) I was also amazed to find out that State Farm also adds a 1 year warranty to the motor and the labor done by the dealership.

They changed all of the fluids in the motor (of course), transmission (and filter) and the differential.

They steam cleaned the carpets in the vehicle and the dealership washed and waxed it when they were done with it.

Oh and the dealership updated the firmware on the engine ECU because of some TSB.

Oh, and to top it all off I got to keep the old motor. It turns out the heads are ok. it messed up the #1 piston and rod. Anyone interested on buying it? :-)

Oh, I also have a engine relay control box for sale. (They decided to change that out too - even though I told them I had changed it after the incident.)

I think I just got back most of the money I have paid State Farm over the years. :-)

Its been about 5000 miles and I'm a VERY happy man!

 

Congrats, good for you. Finally a happy ending to your ordeal.

 

Yeah the car was in the dealers shop for over a month. I forgot to put in the post that they changed two of the coil packs and all of the spark plugs, the cabin air filter, and both engine air filters.

The total bill was just over $14,000.00. I paid my portion with a shiny new $100.00 Bill. That made me very very very happy. Best $100.00 I've spent in a long time.

:-)

Now I just need to figure out the weird thing that happening with my A/C controls. No matter how I set them (Defrost, feet, etc) they are always the same. It's like something's not quite right in the dash. But it was doing this before the water incident.

-Wayne

Oh, and that damned 'air compressor' that's factory provided with the flat kit sucks! I had to use it this week and it took aver 20 minutes to put 30lbs of pressure into the tire! Is there a MB donut spare that might be usable? I'd hate to have to tote around a 18" wheel in the hatch area.