Hi,
I'm hoping someone in the forum might have the knowledge for what I thought might be a fairly straightforward job :-(
I've got a 2013 Vito XLWB 116CDi.
I had my starter battery replaced on the van a few months ago back in June 2024 due to it's age and condition, thought all was good until a couple of weeks ago when I couldn't start it at the local supermarket, no power at all.
RAC eventually jumped me back into life, and I took it for an hours drive to get some charge in the battery. Took it home, switched it off, hoped for the best for the next day. Tried to start it the next day and nothing at all, not even power to the dashboard info screen.
Booked it into my local Merc commercial dealer to see if I could get the battery swapped on warranty and some tests completed, would be a few days until they could squeeze me in so I decided to test all fuses with a multimeter to see if any parastic drain on the system. All was fine.
Decided to unbolt the battery under the passenger seat and 'carefully' slide the battery out enough to take off the positive terminal cover, and loosen the battery clamps from the terminal. Moved it a few cms and the positive cable and clamp fell away with the cover, half the terminal clamp was still on the battery :-(
This positive battery terminal clamp has two post stands for additional items. Looks like it was soldered and then crimped properly.
Ok, so thought well, I'm not paying to diagnose something I've found the fault to so decided to do order the part number from Mercedes for the battery clamp by iteself based on them looking up my reg and chassis number, about £50.
It looked physically different and only had one stand off post but thought ah well, must have been small incremental changes over the years the model was being built.
Ordered a few parts I would need like flux, solder, heatshrink, etc.
Chopped off the current terminal clamp, tidied end as best possible, did quick eye up test with the cable and terminal clamp, and man, the cable is way to big for the terminal clamp!!
The terminal clamp is 9-10mm in diameter nternally by the looks of it, the cable core diameter looks more like 14mm.
I've seen some pretty rough looking non mercedes terminal clamps but concered that some wouldn't really be a decent replacement for what was there.
Does anyone recognise the older snapped terminal clamp as I'm suspecting it may be from another Vito model or a Sprinter?
I'm currently looking for the part number as its the correct internal diamter at least and I don't want to replace the whole positive cable.
I've trawled Amazon and Google for quite some days now :-(
Has anyone here also had the same or similar issues, or any experience with the part number I might need to target?
Kind Regards,
TechHead
I'm hoping someone in the forum might have the knowledge for what I thought might be a fairly straightforward job :-(
I've got a 2013 Vito XLWB 116CDi.
I had my starter battery replaced on the van a few months ago back in June 2024 due to it's age and condition, thought all was good until a couple of weeks ago when I couldn't start it at the local supermarket, no power at all.
RAC eventually jumped me back into life, and I took it for an hours drive to get some charge in the battery. Took it home, switched it off, hoped for the best for the next day. Tried to start it the next day and nothing at all, not even power to the dashboard info screen.
Booked it into my local Merc commercial dealer to see if I could get the battery swapped on warranty and some tests completed, would be a few days until they could squeeze me in so I decided to test all fuses with a multimeter to see if any parastic drain on the system. All was fine.
Decided to unbolt the battery under the passenger seat and 'carefully' slide the battery out enough to take off the positive terminal cover, and loosen the battery clamps from the terminal. Moved it a few cms and the positive cable and clamp fell away with the cover, half the terminal clamp was still on the battery :-(
This positive battery terminal clamp has two post stands for additional items. Looks like it was soldered and then crimped properly.
Ok, so thought well, I'm not paying to diagnose something I've found the fault to so decided to do order the part number from Mercedes for the battery clamp by iteself based on them looking up my reg and chassis number, about £50.
It looked physically different and only had one stand off post but thought ah well, must have been small incremental changes over the years the model was being built.
Ordered a few parts I would need like flux, solder, heatshrink, etc.
Chopped off the current terminal clamp, tidied end as best possible, did quick eye up test with the cable and terminal clamp, and man, the cable is way to big for the terminal clamp!!
The terminal clamp is 9-10mm in diameter nternally by the looks of it, the cable core diameter looks more like 14mm.
I've seen some pretty rough looking non mercedes terminal clamps but concered that some wouldn't really be a decent replacement for what was there.
Does anyone recognise the older snapped terminal clamp as I'm suspecting it may be from another Vito model or a Sprinter?
I'm currently looking for the part number as its the correct internal diamter at least and I don't want to replace the whole positive cable.
I've trawled Amazon and Google for quite some days now :-(
Has anyone here also had the same or similar issues, or any experience with the part number I might need to target?
Kind Regards,
TechHead
