The wife mentioned on Friday night that she smelled something burning on her 300E. I had to run into work on Saturday and didn't get a chance to check it out. This morning I drove the car for ten minutes and when I returned home, noticed smoke faintly coming out from under the hood on the passenger side.
Opened the hood and found the water hose to the windsheild washers burning (?!?!?!?!?!?) It was actually glowing at a spot midway between the fluid reservoir and the coolant overflow tank. I pulled the hose apart and it stopped burning. I haven't dug into it yet but noticed the reinforced clear hose that runs from the washer pump actually has another sleeve wrapped around it with a M/B part number on it.
The car is an '89 so it has the coolant pipes running through the washer reservoir.; I didn't imagine it also had heated hoses? Could this hose actually be heated and the heating element shorted and caused the fire I found? I will check for plugs and other evidence later when I replace the hose.
Not sure why I didn't know this but sure enough, the washer fluid is heated via a wrapped heating element that surrounds the hose and runs from the tank up to the nozzles. Too bad the windings decided to burn. I just replaced it with standard rubber hose for now.
I have not seen that on mine. I just replaced the heater element in the washer tank after finding it had a leak causing the washer tank to over flow with coolant.
I have not seen that on mine. I just replaced the heater element in the washer tank after finding it had a leak causing the washer tank to over flow with coolant.
sounds a bit messy especially if it was getting squirted on the windsheild
electrically heated wiper fluid?? 
Linear Mode
