Mick K
Member
I recently bought a c180 estate and duly joined this Mercedes Forum to increase my (limited) knowledge.
Shortly after I bought it, I did a short - 10mins or so - journey, just enough to warm the engine through and tried to start the engine a few minutes later only to have it half heartedly trying to kick off the starter much like a cold diesel (it is petrol) Eventually it did start and I got home ok. First thing was to contact the dealer and arrange to take it back and the second thing was the search engine on here !
I quickly found the favourite suspect was the Crank shaft sensor and I passed this info on to the dealer and a new one was fitted - no luck !.
To cut it short his electrician had drawn a blank and took it to somewhere with a computer which also showed nothing. He was advised by the mechanic there that it was usually a vacuum pipe fault situated somewhere under the inlet manifold (cannot be more specific as I am recounting this third hand !) Unfortunately this all happened over the recent plethora of public holidays, so it was a couple of weeks before the new part arrived and was fitted only to find out this it was not the cause either.
The dealer in the end booked it into the nearest Mercedes dealer on Thursday and this morning (Saturday) he phoned me to say it was fixed at last, over three weeks after taking it in.
For anyone also trying to source a similar fault on the forum, it was diagnosed as the fuel filter, so please add this to the umpteen other gremlins that seem to have the same symptoms
MikeK
ps Also, like other warm starting problem posts I read here, it started no problem when cold.
Shortly after I bought it, I did a short - 10mins or so - journey, just enough to warm the engine through and tried to start the engine a few minutes later only to have it half heartedly trying to kick off the starter much like a cold diesel (it is petrol) Eventually it did start and I got home ok. First thing was to contact the dealer and arrange to take it back and the second thing was the search engine on here !
I quickly found the favourite suspect was the Crank shaft sensor and I passed this info on to the dealer and a new one was fitted - no luck !.
To cut it short his electrician had drawn a blank and took it to somewhere with a computer which also showed nothing. He was advised by the mechanic there that it was usually a vacuum pipe fault situated somewhere under the inlet manifold (cannot be more specific as I am recounting this third hand !) Unfortunately this all happened over the recent plethora of public holidays, so it was a couple of weeks before the new part arrived and was fitted only to find out this it was not the cause either.
The dealer in the end booked it into the nearest Mercedes dealer on Thursday and this morning (Saturday) he phoned me to say it was fixed at last, over three weeks after taking it in.
For anyone also trying to source a similar fault on the forum, it was diagnosed as the fuel filter, so please add this to the umpteen other gremlins that seem to have the same symptoms
MikeK
ps Also, like other warm starting problem posts I read here, it started no problem when cold.
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