Simon Evans
New Member
- Joined
- Feb 2, 2017
- Messages
- 6
- Car
- E220
Hi
I have a 204 E220 CDi with 130,000 miles on the clock that I have had for just over 2 years now and have started having issues with it in the past month.
Initially, I started having issues with the lights coming on randomly flashing when the car was parked up 1 night and the battery then dying on me. Took it to the garage who tested the batteries and said the auxiliary battery was pretty much dead and the main battery was not great so I got both batteries replaced. 1 issue left from this was a 'Brake Service - Visit Workshop' message in white whenever I started the car but the garage said it was fine to drive and I could get them to look into that properly in a few weeks soI had a chance to clear the 1st bill before getting more work done!
Drove it for the next couple of days fine and then had no need to drive it for 2 days. When I went to drive it next, the battery was totally dead so called the garage who came to collect it and take it back for more tests. 1 thing they noticed is even though they had to jump start it, the water in the washers when they sprayed them before taking it was warm. Eventually after a few days of letting it run to isolate the cause, they determined it was a faulty SAM board under the bonnet so I had to have that replaced.
When I collected it, they said there were 2 new warning messages when starting the car 'ABS Defective - Visit Workshop' & 'ESP Defective - Visit Workshop' which were being caused by the SBC unit reaching it's inbuilt limit but that it was still safe to drive and although they hadn't done it before, they had read up that you can get the unit refurbished instead of replaced as replacing costs more than my car is worth! As they hadn't done it before so couldn't give me a price, I decided to find a garage who has done it before.
After driving it for a few days, I noticed that the ABS and ESP warning messages disappeared. However, they came back on whilst driving home tonight and as soon as they appeared, the speedometer dropped to 0 and stayed there and it felt like the car wouldn't drop into 1st gear too as the revs were really high when pulling away from any junction. Once I stopped the car and turned the engine off, the speedo and gears were fine when I started the car again.
The final part of the above paragraph seems to me unlikely to be anything to do with the SBC pump so I am thinking either I am very unlucky and have 2 possibly major issues again straight after my SAM board being replaced, or there is possibly a bigger underlying issue (maybe electrics related) that is causing all of this. Having spent £1100 on the car in the last month, I don't want to just take it to a garage with a blank cheque to fix it given it is only worth about £2,000 but I also don't want to scrap it so soon after spending that amount of money.,
I am planning to take it to a Mercedes specialist later this week to have the diagnostic scanner run on it, but any suggestions to possible cause or cost would be appreciated.
I have a 204 E220 CDi with 130,000 miles on the clock that I have had for just over 2 years now and have started having issues with it in the past month.
Initially, I started having issues with the lights coming on randomly flashing when the car was parked up 1 night and the battery then dying on me. Took it to the garage who tested the batteries and said the auxiliary battery was pretty much dead and the main battery was not great so I got both batteries replaced. 1 issue left from this was a 'Brake Service - Visit Workshop' message in white whenever I started the car but the garage said it was fine to drive and I could get them to look into that properly in a few weeks soI had a chance to clear the 1st bill before getting more work done!
Drove it for the next couple of days fine and then had no need to drive it for 2 days. When I went to drive it next, the battery was totally dead so called the garage who came to collect it and take it back for more tests. 1 thing they noticed is even though they had to jump start it, the water in the washers when they sprayed them before taking it was warm. Eventually after a few days of letting it run to isolate the cause, they determined it was a faulty SAM board under the bonnet so I had to have that replaced.
When I collected it, they said there were 2 new warning messages when starting the car 'ABS Defective - Visit Workshop' & 'ESP Defective - Visit Workshop' which were being caused by the SBC unit reaching it's inbuilt limit but that it was still safe to drive and although they hadn't done it before, they had read up that you can get the unit refurbished instead of replaced as replacing costs more than my car is worth! As they hadn't done it before so couldn't give me a price, I decided to find a garage who has done it before.
After driving it for a few days, I noticed that the ABS and ESP warning messages disappeared. However, they came back on whilst driving home tonight and as soon as they appeared, the speedometer dropped to 0 and stayed there and it felt like the car wouldn't drop into 1st gear too as the revs were really high when pulling away from any junction. Once I stopped the car and turned the engine off, the speedo and gears were fine when I started the car again.
The final part of the above paragraph seems to me unlikely to be anything to do with the SBC pump so I am thinking either I am very unlucky and have 2 possibly major issues again straight after my SAM board being replaced, or there is possibly a bigger underlying issue (maybe electrics related) that is causing all of this. Having spent £1100 on the car in the last month, I don't want to just take it to a garage with a blank cheque to fix it given it is only worth about £2,000 but I also don't want to scrap it so soon after spending that amount of money.,
I am planning to take it to a Mercedes specialist later this week to have the diagnostic scanner run on it, but any suggestions to possible cause or cost would be appreciated.
