one problem, two stories from two garages!

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Dizwen

Active Member
Joined
Jul 8, 2009
Messages
140
Location
near Derby
Car
C32 AMG
Hope I've posted this in the right section...

First off this is not another negative "my car's crap" thread. I love the car. forums can be full of doom and gloom, yes I've got problems but the car is great!

The story...

A few months ago the engine light came on in the C32. A quick trip to the indie, two main faults :

1. secondary air pump failure (in exhaust system)
2. charge air pump, intermitant fault ( for supercharger inter-cooler)

Problem 1 was a must do repair to get the car through MOT. problem 2 can wait as in the cold weather I'm not hurting the car.

Indie fixed problem 1 at a cost of £700 and car went through MOT.

Problem 2 would cost approx £500 to fix, time to get a third party warranty...

a few days after the MOT, engine light comes back on. Back to indie. Indie tells me it's the problem 2 triggering the light, nothing to worry about, get it repaired in summer under warranty.

fast forward a few months to last week...

Car alarm won't switch off! just goes nuts and flashes about a dozen times and the car won't lock. Call to indie and they say it's the siren, water has got on the spade connections and the alarm goes nuts. Other half has only done short trips in the car today so when I get home I go for a "spirited" drive to get some heat in the engine bay. hour later car is ticking itself cool on my drive and alarm works, pat myself on the back and go in the house.

Next day other half is up Derby and alarm plays up. We have warranty, so she takes it to Mercedes of Derby. a quick play with the car and they say they can fix the siren today. they have also noticed engine light on and can also fix this fault as well. feel abit guilty about not using the indie, but Benz have the car so go ahead and fix everything.

Now the fun starts...

Pick the car up and speak to the service guy. all sorted, siren replaced and also the secondary air pump has been replaced. What?!? the part the indie fitted for me about four months ago was faulty? According to Benz the secondary air pump was causing the light to come on, not the charge air pump(problem2). Benz replaced the secondary air pump and the relays, the indie just replaced the pump.

Benz never mention the charge air pump (problem 2). when I quiz them on this, they say no faults have been stored. Has the indie screwed me over? first only replacing just the pump and not the relays? how do I stand on this? the indie cost me £700 for a part that lasted less than 2 weeks and someone else has replaced it, and not mentioned a fault the indie says is wrong with my car.

Benz say the charge air pump will not bring the engine light on, indie says it does. Benz state that charge air pump (problem 2) will make the car loss alot of performance, like driving an ordinary car, the Benz service guy said. but the car runs fine. to be honest the car seems alittle faster now with the other pump fitted, but I've never suffered huge power loss.

I've got the "faulty" pump from the dealers. rang indie who were pis*ed off Benz didn't replace part under parts warranty, as it's obvious it's not very old. indie tells me to put the pump on e-bay...

Who do you trust? I don't trust dealers, i've always had nothing but bad experiances with them, they cover up, lie and cheat to protect themselves. indie was recommended, and my other halfs cousin works in the back office.

Car is booked in with Benz for a free diagnostic to see if any new faults have happened. It's also booked in with indie same day an hour later for a fault find. Lets see if they come up with different faults...

Sorry for the long post, but it's a long story, and I've missed some bits out that aren't really important (Benz doing the work without telling me what they where replacing etc...)
 
Trust no one! haha

I would say you have done the best thing getting a 3rd opinion from a different Benz dealer.

Are you not in danger of making your warranty void by getting critcal parts changed by your indie?
 
Everybody who knows there stuff about mercs know that the reason the secondary air injection pump goes is not a fault with the pump itself but the relay sticks on and causes the pump to run all the time and burn it out.

So when you have to replace the pump you have to replace the relay as well.

I would be asking how much experience this independant garage has. to me it seems like very little.

As for the charge air cooler pump. The pump itself fails and this causes the intake air temp to rise to high so when you give it a boot full the car will accelerate but have lack of power as the kompressor will not cut in until the air intake temp has fallen back down to with in the spec the ecu needs to see.
 
Sorry for the long post, but it's a long story, and I've missed some bits out that aren't really important (Benz doing the work without telling me what they where replacing etc...)

This part of your story not very important !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is very important as it has caused you a lot of your problem now.

Why on earth would you let them do that ?

Surely nobody gives a dealer an open cheque book to carry out any repair they like without consulting you - do they ???????????

I must be living in a different world to you then, so perhaps I should not comment further.
 
Mate

Your problem below

1. secondary air pump failure (in exhaust system).

I had the issue and is very common. The pump blows fresh air into the exhaust system and filters the CO2. The repair requires both pump and relay to be replaced. Usually the relay burns the pump out. However it is NOT an MOT failure if you don't have it fixed, I was told by MB and my Indie (Jay Mercland). I had mine repaired by MB for £400. You paid way to much.

Mate you've been screwed......
 
Mate

Your problem below

1. secondary air pump failure (in exhaust system).

I had the issue and is very common. The pump blows fresh air into the exhaust system and filters the CO2. The repair requires both pump and relay to be replaced. Usually the relay burns the pump out. However it is NOT an MOT failure if you don't have it fixed, I was told by MB and my Indie (Jay Mercland). I had mine repaired by MB for £400. You paid way to much.

Mate you've been screwed......but like kth256 why have you given them an open cheque book?
 
yes the problem has occured because the relay wasnt changed. If this is not changed the pump will burn out immediately.

However the original garage should have had the opportunity to fix it so they could get it replaced under guarantee.
 
the other thing that i would be looking at is that ALL manufacturer supplied parts WILL HAVE a 12 months parts warranty, so i cannot see why you had to pay for another part, this should be replaced free of charge, and you should at the very most then of had to pay for the new relays and tha labour to change them, i think i'd be writing a letter firstly to the dealer principal and then to Mercedes Benz UK, customer relations to see what thay have to say regarding this
 
This part of your story not very important !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is very important as it has caused you a lot of your problem now.

Why on earth would you let them do that ?

Surely nobody gives a dealer an open cheque book to carry out any repair they like without consulting you - do they ???????????

I must be living in a different world to you then, so perhaps I should not comment further.

I know they should have asked me, I just couldn't see the point of moaning about it on here. I did end up speaking to the general manager at Derby and told them I was very unhappy at how they just replaced parts without my approval. like I said I do not like dealers...
 
thanks for the replys. It looks like MB were speaking the me truth about everything. makes a change for a dealer...

time to find a new indie. I belive you can get better service at indies and my warranty policy lets me take the car to whoever I want. Benz at Derby were closest when the alarm went pop, so I used them. anyone recommend a good indie in Derby/Notts?
 
Last edited:
If you're impressed with MB Derby and your warranty lets you take it anywhere, why change??
 
My engine light came on a few months ago, took it into local MB dealer, they said air pump needed replacing at a cost of £700 ish , in the end the MB delaer i bought it from decided they wantedto fix it and trailered it away from my local one, all they replaced was the relay, and said the pump was fine! cost of relay £7 (paid by the dealer). they said if the pump went they would replace it FOC under warrenty. in your case if the relay wasnt replaced it would (as jay said) burn out the new pump pretty quickly. you probably have not been screwed, but the indie should have replaced the £7 relay as a matter of cause.

the charge pump just effects performance, nothing to do with the engine light.
 
It really doesn't sound like you have a problem with the intercooler pump. When it fails it feels like you've lost all power. When it happened to me my nose almost touched the windscreen. You really wouldn't be able to drive the car.

As others have already said the relays sticking cause the air injection pump problem. IIRC there was a recall on the relays. Might be worth checking.

Also IIRC the air injection pump is a requirement for US (LA?) smog tests, so I might have expected it to get through an MOT without it.
 
Well car was at Benz of Derby on saturday for it's star...

And they found no new faults with the car. So after two weeks, nothing, not a thing. Well that's one indie i'll not be going back to...
 

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