car gone into total meltdown - battery, alternator, regulator, CPU or something else?

[Upex]

Thanks grober, nice to know I'm not being taken for a ride as it were.

Did think it maybe a tougher job when realised it was a water cooked one, although still seems funny to mix water and electric lol.

Thanks for the help and info

 

[optimusprime]

wow

Whats happened to simplicity ,Mercedes keep try to make things harder and harder. They dont want any old Tom **** and Harry play with their cars do they. Still the saying goes , if you can buy one ,you can aford to pay for repairs. Like when i had to change my water pump on my W124 260E I think that the engine was built after the water pump was put in .What a game it was just as awkward as this alternator job. Good luck.

 

[Upex]

Whats happened to simplicity ,Mercedes keep try to make things harder and harder. They dont want any old Tom **** and Harry play with their cars do they. Still the saying goes , if you can buy one ,you can aford to pay for repairs. Like when i had to change my water pump on my W124 260E I think that the engine was built after the water pump was put in .What a game it was just as awkward as this alternator job. Good luck.

Lol, I guess, but the folks that pay 100k for the car can foot the bill, and it's the poor folks to who but it down the line, for just a few k then get the repairs.

Sounds like the water pump was a nightmare, fingers cross I'll be ok on Monday.

 

[ItalianTuneUp]

I had a lot of weird messages popping up on the dash display, but after getting a new alternator, almost all of them have disappeared

Hopefully your new alternator should fix a lot of your car's issues

 

[Upex]

I had a lot of weird messages popping up on the dash display, but after getting a new alternator, almost all of them have disappeared

Hopefully your new alternator should fix a lot of your car's issues

Yeah it will (fingers crossed) as a full battery removes all the errors, so they must be related, which makes sense as they only popped up during this. What worries me was the loss of power steering, power brakes and more so, the loss of drive & reverse. I couldn't see how these could be caused by low ele, assumed the drive came from engine, but I guess things are so much more intertwined with computers these days that even basic propulsion needs a battery lol.

Once this is done, the next job will be fixing/replacing the automatic valve, although taking the battery off at night stops the rear from rising whilst parked lol (but perhaps not a permanent solution )

 

[ItalianTuneUp]

Once this is done, the next job will be fixing/replacing the automatic valve, although taking the battery off at night stops the rear from rising whilst parked lol (but perhaps not a permanent solution )

Uh oh, the car has airmatic issues too?

 

[Upex]

Not really.... had some one drive into the back of me about 2 year ago and since then, when parked and lock for several hours, the back end Jack's itself up.

Someone here had same issues and a new valve thingy in wheel arch fixed it. But as it drives fine, throws no errors and goes up and down as it should when in use, I never got round to replacing it

 

[ItalianTuneUp]

It's strange because the rear of my car jacked itself up sometimes when it was cold after I reversed into something in the dark.

After replacing a leaking airmatic valve distribution block and front struts, MB reset the airmatic system as part of the installation of the new components.

It may be possible that the rear level sensor got damaged during the rear impact?

Perhaps a look on STAR might reveal some error codes? Or perhaps a reset of the airmatic system would fix this?

Both rear airmatic struts are sometimes fed by a single air line from the valve distribution block (as in the W220 S320CDI like ours), so perhaps that outlet or section has become damaged? A leak test can find this.

Was the impact significant?

 

[Upex]

Not really, broke both rear lights, scuffed up bumper, bend an exhaust outlet spout back on itself (man, what a job bending it kind of back to shape, those things are solid!), couple of parking sensors and that was it.

I thought about rear ride height sensor, but it drives fine and when I unlock the car, it starts to level out as it should, so think it's more of a seal thing going on ]hereby air is slowly leaking in the back shocks from the res.

Clearly I'm not overly worried, but would be nice to fix, just not after spending £££s on it, as between that and the alternator (still not Done) I'd have spend the majority of what the car is worth lol

 

[Upex]

Well, all sorted now and everything back and strong. So strong that I've blown 3 bulbs lol.

However having been enjoying the reestablished power, I've put my command back to german, oups, and the language option is greyed out so can't change back. So guess I'll keep trying (disc didn't read every time, think the lens is a bit dirty etc) or will keep an eye out for another.

Anyone know if they have to be the Bosch or blaupunct Tele atlas map c.d.?

 

[ItalianTuneUp]

^ Thinking about this more re the rear rising when parked up for a while, at a guess, I'd say that you have a leaking airmatic valve distribution block where it supplies air to the air line that feeds both the rear airmatic struts.

I had MB do a leak test which confirmed leaks were present in the airmatic valve distribution block. Replacement of this including resetting the airmatic system was around £350 or so from memory.

However the leak test was less than £100, and this will tell you if the block is leaking or not.

 

[Upex]

^ Thinking about this more re the rear rising when parked up for a while, at a guess, I'd say that you have a leaking airmatic valve distribution block where it supplies air to the air line that feeds both the rear airmatic struts.

I had MB do a leak test which confirmed leaks were present in the airmatic valve distribution block. Replacement of this including resetting the airmatic system was around £350 or so from memory.

However the leak test was less than £100, and this will tell you if the block is leaking or not.

Thanks for the info. Have some stuff to sort on the wife's slk first, but will explore this at a later date and good to know of a good starting point. First things first though, gotta do something about the shockingly bad fob range!

Makes sense to me though, as it's not leaking out, as front doesn't sink etc, and is fine once being used and holds height etc. Hence my lack of rush to get it sorted.

Cheers ITU

 

[ItalianTuneUp]

Good luck getting it sorted out and let us know how you get on

 

[AdGizmo]

Upex this exact same problem has happened to me. How was yours resolved?

Any guidence would be great as I'm at a total loss like you on your first post!

Cheers

Adam