bvdreijen
New Member
I just registered with MB Club UK, as I need some help. I’m new to this forum, and I’m no mechanic, so bear with me.
I have a 2001 E320CDI Estate (automatic). It's done 160k miles. Bought it two years ago with 140k miles on the clock.
I’m looking for a good specialist in SE London (where I live) or Kent (or further afield if necessary). If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.
There are two main problems:
1. Limping mode
For the last few weeks the car has regularly put itself in limping mode. Most of the time, switching the engine off/on gets it out of limping mode. Sometimes I have to do this multiple times in one trip (if longer than, say, 10-15 miles). However, on two occasions that didn’t work, and it remained in limping mode even after turning the engine off. Once I could limp to the garage (close to home), and the second time I had the car towed to a (different) garage. So two Merc specialists have looked at this, and both did not manage to analyse the exact problem (which doesn’t seem uncommon, given what I can find on the forums here). Both of them found oil in the box that houses the gear box ECU, and both cleaned it out. They also reset the codes. Apart from getting it out of limping mode, that didn’t make any difference because soon after driving away it went in limping mode again.
2. Injectors
The local Merc specialist identified that the injectors weren’t working at full capacity (50V vs. 250V?) and suggested all six need to be replaced, as identifying which one(s) is/are the problem is not possible. Is this true? Any suggestions?
Other problems I have (which may be linked to the above two problems):
· Previously, when doing 70mph, putting my foot down would accalerate the car to 80-90mph fairly quickly, but it now lacks this ooomph. Would this be because of the injector issue?
· Difficulty starting when the engine is hot. Had to use quickstart sometimes, but I'm trying to avoid this. No problem starting when the engine is cold. Again, could this be linked to injector problem?
· At lower speeds, when I put my foot down, a large black cloud of smoke comes from the exhaust.
I spoke with a few a few people, who had a couple of suggestions:
· One asked if the ATF had been changed recently? I don’t know, so I’ll check (I’ve only driven 20k miles in it so far). Not sure if that could cause the gear issues.
· Put Red X in the tank, this will ‘clean’ the engine (and injectors?) and increase power. I’m not sure if that’s a good idea, or whether it will make any difference.
Thanks for any help/suggestions
I have a 2001 E320CDI Estate (automatic). It's done 160k miles. Bought it two years ago with 140k miles on the clock.
I’m looking for a good specialist in SE London (where I live) or Kent (or further afield if necessary). If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.
There are two main problems:
1. Limping mode
For the last few weeks the car has regularly put itself in limping mode. Most of the time, switching the engine off/on gets it out of limping mode. Sometimes I have to do this multiple times in one trip (if longer than, say, 10-15 miles). However, on two occasions that didn’t work, and it remained in limping mode even after turning the engine off. Once I could limp to the garage (close to home), and the second time I had the car towed to a (different) garage. So two Merc specialists have looked at this, and both did not manage to analyse the exact problem (which doesn’t seem uncommon, given what I can find on the forums here). Both of them found oil in the box that houses the gear box ECU, and both cleaned it out. They also reset the codes. Apart from getting it out of limping mode, that didn’t make any difference because soon after driving away it went in limping mode again.
2. Injectors
The local Merc specialist identified that the injectors weren’t working at full capacity (50V vs. 250V?) and suggested all six need to be replaced, as identifying which one(s) is/are the problem is not possible. Is this true? Any suggestions?
Other problems I have (which may be linked to the above two problems):
· Previously, when doing 70mph, putting my foot down would accalerate the car to 80-90mph fairly quickly, but it now lacks this ooomph. Would this be because of the injector issue?
· Difficulty starting when the engine is hot. Had to use quickstart sometimes, but I'm trying to avoid this. No problem starting when the engine is cold. Again, could this be linked to injector problem?
· At lower speeds, when I put my foot down, a large black cloud of smoke comes from the exhaust.
I spoke with a few a few people, who had a couple of suggestions:
· One asked if the ATF had been changed recently? I don’t know, so I’ll check (I’ve only driven 20k miles in it so far). Not sure if that could cause the gear issues.
· Put Red X in the tank, this will ‘clean’ the engine (and injectors?) and increase power. I’m not sure if that’s a good idea, or whether it will make any difference.
Thanks for any help/suggestions
