With their founder being the first person to officially release a ?true? automobile, Mercedes Benz has always been about coming up with many firsts in their line of work. Founded by Karl Benz in 1871, the Mercedes Benz company has made a name mainly for their limousines and sports cars. Mercedes Benz also made some notable contributions in automotive technology, this would include, but not limited to fuel injection, anti-lock brakes, stability control, and brake assists, most of which are now incorporated by their competitors' own designs. Since being one of the oldest car automakers still operational today, it can be argued that Mercedes Benz has a better understanding of what makes a car tick. Internal combustion engines have been the industry standard for more than a century, and is projected to retain that status for a few more years. While most of the innovations that Mercedes has pioneered steers (no pun intended) more to the safety side, the German automaker has kept the quality up on the engine side, as evident in the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren (fastest automatic road car), BRABUS W211 (fastest street-legal saloon), or the Mercedes-AMG 6208cc M156 (most powerful naturally aspirated V8 engine). Producing engines that perform on those levels requires an effective cooling system, as the heat coming produced by the engine can be quite damaging to numerous parts including the engine itself. Earlier automobiles were produced with air-cooled engines, but nowadays, most engines use fluid-cooled systems which normally uses a mixture of water or antifreeze. Equipped with a radiator fastened behind the car's grill to hold the coolant, the process generally means circulating the fluid to absorb the heat and disperse it through to the air that passes through the grill as the car moves forward. Of course a cooling system does lower the temperature generated of the engine, but in reality a certain heat is still needed for the engine to work on optimal levels, hence there is as a need to control the flow of the coolant. Mercedes Benz and other car makers have always relied on the use of thermostats to get the job done. A Mercedes Benz thermostat is standard to all models and product lines, which is normally a wax pellet sealed inside a chamber. An expansion provision is located in the same chamber which operates a rod that opens the valve which regulates the flow of the coolant. As the engine hits operating temperature, the wax melts and expands to the provision, thus toggling the rod and opening the valves to let the coolant flow freely into the engine. The composition of the wax is matched to the operating temperature of the particular engine, since engines have different operational levels. Worn out thermostats could prove problematic, causing overheating in worst case scenarios. Most modern engines are also susceptible to increase emissions since they need to run in particularly high temperatures to decrease the amount of pollutants. A replacement for Mercedes thermostats are easy enough to find, either with a local dealership or through the Internet.