I had the unfortunate experience of a dead blower fan motor, which apparently is a common feature of the W210. The climate display is responsive and I can hear flaps opening and closing under the dash, but I do not get any air blowing. The fan is dead. Apparently I've read that if the regulator is bad, the fan speed is about 1/2 speed no matter what setting. My fan is dead.
I find myself in a predicament. If I purchase the W140 blower regulator, and it turns out that the fan is bad, I will have to buy a new fan and another new matching regulator. (I think the cost of the new motor, regulator, and mounting bracket is more than $700.)
How do I tell if I have a bad motor or a bad regulator before I purchase the parts I need.
Any advice and suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Connect power to the fan. You should already have +12V there, so you merely have to ground the lead going to the regulator. The fan should run at full speed if the motor is good.
Thanks, I will remove the motor and will try to power it up, if it spins I change only the regulator.
Why was the whole blower regulator and motor redesigned??? Was the blower regulator redesigned because the old one failed often? If so, should I opt for the new version upgrade?
If I get the W140 blower regulator, how does it compare with the original W210 regulator in terms of quality? If they are the same, does that mean it is the same POS as the one that broke. I've seen original W210 regulators for sale on E-Bay, the one that is discontinued. Should I buy the original W210 regulator if I find it?
Of course, I don't know why the assembly was redesigned. Perhaps it cost them less per car for the newer parts.
As far as I know, the 140 regulator is electrically identical to your old one. Yours may have broken, but most of them don't and I wouldn't worry about it very much. Personally, I would buy a factory 140 regulator over a 210 regulator sold by anybody on eBay.
I just finished up this job by using the 140 regulatory, which I purchased from Autohaus AZ, and I am totally happy now. The fan works great and I saved myself ~$450. The writeup on splicing the wires was very informative and easy to follow.
So the dead motor was indeed the blower regulator and not the fan in this case.
I ended up changing the charcoal and the regular filters, which added 15 or so minutes to the job.
I have the exact same problem and was not sure about going with an old w210 or a new 140 for the same reason, spend that money and then need a new w210 regulator and blower.
Can you tell me exactly what you ordered from autohaus az? a new regulator for a 1998 w140? do you have the exact part number? did you order the filters as well from them? can you provide that info as well?
I replaced my regulator 10 months ago with the w140 unit from AutoHausAZ. All good.
Today my blower wouldn't go. Took the footwell cover off and gave it a whack. Started right up. Asked my indie what he thought I should do. He said I should leave the panel off and give it a whack when it won't go. He also said that if I wanted to fix it I could replace the brushes. I asked where I'd find the right brushes and he said I didn't need to. Instead I could get some that are bigger and cut/file them to the right size. Cost would be about $6.
Any thoughts? I have no idea how to begin even. I thought about getting a used blower motor from a salvage yard to work on but I can't be assured that I'll get the older unit instead of one of the replacements.
Today my fan runs at a slower speed than yesterday. Suggests bad regulator again (replaced with 140 regulator at the end of last summer).
Three questions:
1. Is it possible that the intermittent slow speed is related to bad brushes as the whack to get started suggests I have?
2. Could bad brushes cause a regulator failure?
3. Could this indeed be another bad regulator and whacking it somehow makes that go too?
After 13 years of service you can expect the brushes to be wear out. I am also advising on this forum for replacing alternator brushes, as they are not too expensive to do with any other service, but suck when alternator stop charging in the middle of the desert 200 miles from home.
Short brushes will spark for some time, making the motor going slower and yes, whacking will get them to work better for a while. So your symptoms very likely are bad brushes. Cheap enough if you can find brushes only to replace.
All depends on mileage, your "new" regulator should have lasted longer than that.
It might serve you to check your electrical connections - if you press fit the connectors without soldering that could be the issue you have now.
I have seen old brush junk muck up the owrks, when there was life left on the brushes. The brushes job is old school stuff, one of those things you can manhandle but doesn't have much clory in it.
Search feature of this forum works freat on this type of repair:
Mercedes Benz W210 Blower Motor Regulator Resistor E320 E420 E430 9094302385
hi,
At this moment these regulators much cheaper on eBay around $70.
I bought one, it works OK on my w210 1997, and comes with thermal paste.
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