W203 stepper motor / flap clicking

[Alfie]

We recently had a customer come in with his W203 C class that had the often common 'clicking' from behind the dashboard.

Mercedes Benz Guildford quoted him £1500 and Mercedes Ascot quoted £2500 to fix it! Staggering.

ASRA has the job down as an eight hour exercise!

We put him in touch with a local independent ex Mercedes Benz Guildford technician who did the whole job for him for £550 inc VAT. If he had needed a stepper motor aswell it would have been £650.

Anyone who wants his contact details then his name is Graham Marsh 07726 367007 or 01276 472007

He is servicing my car as I write!

 

[Continental]

We recently had a customer come in with his W203 C class that had the often common 'clicking' from behind the dashboard.

Mercedes Benz Guildford quoted him £1500 and Mercedes Ascot quoted £2500 to fix it! Staggering.

ASRA has the job down as an eight hour exercise!

We put him in touch with a local independent ex Mercedes Benz Guildford technician who did the whole job for him for £550 inc VAT. If he had needed a stepper motor aswell it would have been £650.

Anyone who wants his contact details then his name is Graham Marsh 07726 367007 or 01276 472007

He is servicing my car as I write!

Sorry to revive this old thread but if you are at all handy and can replace the factory radio with an aftermarket unit it is really worth looking at doing this job yourself depending on where the clicking sound is coming from - for most people it seems to be the mid left side of the dash and generally involves taking out a stepper motor located just to the left behind the radio area. There are a few people in the states that have uploaded YouTube videos on how to access this area but obviously being RHD here in the UK you don’t have to drop the whole lower dash under the steering wheel to access the usual culprit area so in my opinion the whole procedure is much easier. Once you have the Center console free and the radio out/coin ash tray out remove 3 x t20 securing the rest of the piece of trim next to the glove box and carefully pry that trim out... with good light you’ll be able to access two of the t20 screws securing the stepper motor and linkage arm, pay attention to the positioning of the arm on the motor as will help with reassembly, unclip the motor from the wiring connector. For the third screw holding the stepper motor in access that through the radio area you may need to pull some insulting material back to see/access it (another pair of hands may help here). After that check the linkage arm for any breaks and ideally replace with the revised newer arm. I would also recommend if you don’t have a new replacement motor carefully prying open the old stepper motor and checking for any broken teeth on the plastic cogs inside it before attempting to reassemble everything and test (possible to do with just the ac unit plugged back in after stepper motor and arm linkage put back) by turning ignition on and holding down windscreen and recirculate buttons on the ac unit until both leds flash back and forth, if successful they’ll stop flashing after about 30 sec you’ll also notice the clicking sound will have stopped and the arm moving smoothly. If not successful the clicking will likely continue and the leds on the ac unit will continue to flash back and forth until the ignition is turned off.

hope this helps.