Star Diagnosis

[arkamelis]

Hi all
finally took my car in for mb star diagnosis, sadly my car had far too many faults logged to diagnose what was causing the problem i first went in for, " problem starting " i have had all the faults wiped and taking it back in the end of this month to have it redone, tho the man did say my glow plug no 6 was showing a big problem, which i know is a problem because its not connected, " bolts snapped ". and some think about high pressure on the fuel rail. anyway thought i would put them on for you guys to have a look, or just to show some off you's what the Star diagnosis shows up.

 

[arkamelis]

blimey could i get it any bigger

 

[arkamelis]

the rest of it

the other pages

 

[aka$h]

most of those have been caused by a flat battery at some point.

 

[iscaboy]

I would be interested to know how many of these "faults" are actually faults, and how many are just transient errors.

For example, if you are running a windows PC with a recent version of the OS you can bring up Task Manager and then Resource Manager, and lo and behold despite the fact that your computer is stable and works perfectly well, you will see intermittent disk and memory errors being reported.

These are not faults, they are just errors.

I see a lot of the headings / descriptions in this are of the nature "undervoltage at pin xyz" or "excess pressure recorded at sensor uvw" and I have to ask myself, are these actual faults, or just transient errors that have been recorded?

Speaking as an engineer, the quality of information given by this diagnostic is less than useless, take the "undervoltage at pin xyz", what was the mean voltage? What was the undervoltage reading? What is the correct reading?

Digital data recording of this type does a piss poor job at recording events like fuses blowing or 1 farad ICE caps charging when a system is turned on or even noise from bad brushes getting into the system.

I would imagine that people like Blackc55 etc have to learn to interpret these "diagnostics" in exactly the same way that the traditional fitter had to learn to interpret the symptoms of faults on traditional vehicles?

 

[Number_Cruncher]

Any trouble code, on any vehicle system, from any manufacturer is just a starting point for further diagnosis. The problem is that too many people, both public and mechanics wrongly interpret these trouble codes as if they were pointing to a definite fault, i.e., as if the trouble code were the end of the diagnosis. The ECU which can tell the difference between a failed sensor and a failed connector to the sensor has yet to be invented.

In this case, yes, checking the battery voltage, particularly during cold cranking, would be a good first step. Then, once the battery and charging circuit are given the all clear, clear all the codes from memory, and run the car for a while before re-scanning after a week or so to see what's happened, and if there are any "real" faults.

The use of electronic interrogation has made fault finding much easier than it used to be, IF and only IF it is used intelligently. Having a high speed digital system that is constantly scanning for faults, and can isolate them down to cylinder level is an absolute boon, compared to the old fashioned guesswork which, alas, is still not fully eradicated.

 

[BULLITTBOSS]

Clear faults and then see what ones reappear for true diagnosis
like mentioned earlier low voltage will bring numerous faults
Richard

 

[jasonyw]

The STAR is a pain and is badly designed and show up all sort of errors even minor.

Focus on the major faults.

You really need a toy of your own instead of paying someone to do it for you everytime.

Everytime I used it, I ended with a flat battery.

If you want to rectify all the errors including the minor ones, it will take you days.

 

[withey]

Looks worse than it actuall is i would say...well i would hope!

 

[tpwuk]

Someone has already said this but most of these will be caused by a flat or low charged battery. I had the same on my CLK. Had them cleared and a few weeks later it got a clean bill of health!

 

[arkamelis]

thank you so much for your help guys, i appriciate you views, and i will get another star done the end of the month, and hopefully it should look a bit healther. my battry did go flat awhile ago, has i had major issues with the car starting, due to damaged ring gear

 

[shorty]

Any faults marked with a lower case 'tick' are stored faults and are most likley caused by a dead battery or a control unit being disconnected . The faults marked with an upper case 'tick' are stored and current , these are faults that the car is expercing at the time of the diganosise .

 

[Sp!ke]

I'm thinking about sorting myself out with a Star.

I can get my hands on the software but the cabling is another matter. how cheaply can this be sourced?

 

[Alfie]

Any faults marked with a lower case 'tick' are stored faults and are most likley caused by a dead battery or a control unit being disconnected . The faults marked with an upper case 'tick' are stored and current , these are faults that the car is expercing at the time of the diganosise .

I think you mean upper and lower case 'f'.

Something as simple as a blown bulb can cause an 'F' then when its replaced it becomes an 'f'.

 

[shorty]

I think you mean upper and lower case 'f'.

Something as simple as a blown bulb can cause an 'F' then when its replaced it becomes an 'f'.

Doagh
! yes i did mean upper and lower case 'f'

 

[Hi-Ho Silver]

Blimey!!

I'd probably get a second, third and possibly even a fourth opinion. Have your car tested somewhere else and compare the results as sometimes these can be cleared.

I had my car tested by MB which showed a 'misfire on cyl No4' and then at a local indie which showed nothing at all. Confusing as now I don't know which one is correct, so a third opinion is currently being booked due to probablility. It seems that some 'Faults/faults' can be very minor and also can be caused by some very odd things.

 

[arkamelis]

hi since i brought my car in march 2010, it hasnt been on a star, so i guess there could have been many faults logged over some time, all faults have been cleared and i have re-booked it in to mercedes the end of this month, ime hoping that it should show alot less than the first time round. some guys have mentioned about electrical errors, which may have been down to me running the battery out, when i was getting problems with it starting. i know for sure ive got to get number six glow plug removed and get a new one fitted has the guy at mercedes did say it was showing has a major fault, hopefully ile be able to do this befor it goes back end of the month