st4
Banned
This morning on the drive to work I was feeling very pleased with myself. I had just one day left to go before I was off on holiday and was mulling over all the stuff I had prepared.
As I mentioned in a thread way back my best mate and I were doing a travelling holiday of driving around Europe. I got all the documents, insurance and stuff ready and on Monday AM we'd be leaving Dover for France, and from there 2 weeks of fun driving, sight seeing, relaxing, beer and BBQing commenced. Such delights as the Stelvio pass, the San Bernadino pass and other driving routes lied in wake...
So what happened.
Coming off the roundabout the car lost power. Normally 30-70mph flies by and the E320cdi can out accelerate most things you come accross. Not then, it would barely accelerate. Kick down, nothing, it wouldn't drop a gear but was changing up. Using the steering wheel buttons got the gears to drop, but still no real gain in performance. It eventually soldiered upto 70mph though.
I pull in safely, stop the car and leave the engine off for about a minute. Restart, still no power. Put into N and rev hard. Won't rev above 3k. On the move get it to 40mph and drop the gears manually, no, it wouldn't take the lower gear until it could be held below 3k revs.
Clearly electrical therefore as the car was drivable, albiet pretty slowly. Like the turbo wasn't boosting....
I call the Mercedes dealership (its an AUC) and get it booked in. I call them to check that the car is ready and getr "oh yes Mr Taylor, your car is ready for you". Great, they fixed it, 10/10 I thought.
Nope, I arrive to discover they have diagnosed it but haven't worked on the car. Why? We are awating authority from MB Uk. Its under warranty, I say to them, you can call MB Hull where I got it from, but I need the car fixed alas as I have a wedding to go to tomorrow up in Aberdeen, and a ferry to catch on Monday at 8am....
They got it wrong, and said there were two "Mr Taylors" in...and there point was what???
Anyway, I explained nicely my problem of the wedding and the Ferry and really need the car for Saturday and as the service dept isn't open on Sunday if it wasn't fixed I miss my Ferry and my holiday plans need rapid re-arrangement at my expense (its not their problem my car packs up just before I embark on a 5k mile holiday but it would be really good if they could fit it in as Saturday is a half day).
My issues are two fold....
1. One advisor told me it was a battery fault...didn't stack up.
2. The other advisor told me it was the "inlet port shut off motor" that had failed. From memory this does go on the V6 CDi along with the CPS.
In a indie garage or any other you can talk to the person working on the car, not a suit on a desk. It makes things very complex as they couldn't find my "job sheet" but if you could just speak to the person who worked/diagnosed the car you'd find out in an instant.
It also doesn't take a day to find out whether the car is on warranty or not and what it covers, tier 1 covers engine faults. End of. If they knew their product better they'd have it fixed as they have the part in stock.
However, to MB Glasgows credit they said due to my need for the car ASAP they'll ensure it will be worked on 1st thing tomorrow all being well but obviously can't "promise" it will be ready (and thus no car for the wedding-not a complete disaster but for the Ferry a complete c0ck up as they are closed Sunday so not ready Sunday, no Ferry on Monday at 8am).
The courtesy car is dire. I am too young to get a Mercedes car from them (the courtesy car scheme is operated through Enterprise) so I have a manual Ford Ka on a 10 plate.
However, the Ka has taught me 3 things.
1. How good my car really is
2. Limp home in a V6 Cdi is about the same power as a regular run about.
3. I can still drive a manual car.
As I mentioned in a thread way back my best mate and I were doing a travelling holiday of driving around Europe. I got all the documents, insurance and stuff ready and on Monday AM we'd be leaving Dover for France, and from there 2 weeks of fun driving, sight seeing, relaxing, beer and BBQing commenced. Such delights as the Stelvio pass, the San Bernadino pass and other driving routes lied in wake...
So what happened.
Coming off the roundabout the car lost power. Normally 30-70mph flies by and the E320cdi can out accelerate most things you come accross. Not then, it would barely accelerate. Kick down, nothing, it wouldn't drop a gear but was changing up. Using the steering wheel buttons got the gears to drop, but still no real gain in performance. It eventually soldiered upto 70mph though.
I pull in safely, stop the car and leave the engine off for about a minute. Restart, still no power. Put into N and rev hard. Won't rev above 3k. On the move get it to 40mph and drop the gears manually, no, it wouldn't take the lower gear until it could be held below 3k revs.
Clearly electrical therefore as the car was drivable, albiet pretty slowly. Like the turbo wasn't boosting....
I call the Mercedes dealership (its an AUC) and get it booked in. I call them to check that the car is ready and getr "oh yes Mr Taylor, your car is ready for you". Great, they fixed it, 10/10 I thought.
Nope, I arrive to discover they have diagnosed it but haven't worked on the car. Why? We are awating authority from MB Uk. Its under warranty, I say to them, you can call MB Hull where I got it from, but I need the car fixed alas as I have a wedding to go to tomorrow up in Aberdeen, and a ferry to catch on Monday at 8am....
They got it wrong, and said there were two "Mr Taylors" in...and there point was what???
Anyway, I explained nicely my problem of the wedding and the Ferry and really need the car for Saturday and as the service dept isn't open on Sunday if it wasn't fixed I miss my Ferry and my holiday plans need rapid re-arrangement at my expense (its not their problem my car packs up just before I embark on a 5k mile holiday but it would be really good if they could fit it in as Saturday is a half day).
My issues are two fold....
1. One advisor told me it was a battery fault...didn't stack up.
2. The other advisor told me it was the "inlet port shut off motor" that had failed. From memory this does go on the V6 CDi along with the CPS.
In a indie garage or any other you can talk to the person working on the car, not a suit on a desk. It makes things very complex as they couldn't find my "job sheet" but if you could just speak to the person who worked/diagnosed the car you'd find out in an instant.
It also doesn't take a day to find out whether the car is on warranty or not and what it covers, tier 1 covers engine faults. End of. If they knew their product better they'd have it fixed as they have the part in stock.
However, to MB Glasgows credit they said due to my need for the car ASAP they'll ensure it will be worked on 1st thing tomorrow all being well but obviously can't "promise" it will be ready (and thus no car for the wedding-not a complete disaster but for the Ferry a complete c0ck up as they are closed Sunday so not ready Sunday, no Ferry on Monday at 8am).
The courtesy car is dire. I am too young to get a Mercedes car from them (the courtesy car scheme is operated through Enterprise) so I have a manual Ford Ka on a 10 plate.
However, the Ka has taught me 3 things.
1. How good my car really is
2. Limp home in a V6 Cdi is about the same power as a regular run about.
3. I can still drive a manual car.
