Timing chains??

[Pabs400]

I have a E400 convertible on a 64 plate, I bought it brand new, it’s got 36,000 Miles on the clock, this week I noticed a tinny rattle sound inside the engine, it’s quite loud & sounds bad, it’s only when I start the car up & lasts for a couple of seconds?? I’m hearing a lot about timing chains & timing chain tensioners, should I be worried?

 

[markjay]

The dereaded timing chain failure relates to the 1.6L/1.8L 4-Cyl M271 engine, which was fitted to various MB cars up to 2012/2013, so your 2014 E400 car with the V6 engine won't have the M271.

Said that, obviously any engine can develop a timing chain fault.

But one other possibility is the hydraulic valve lifters - try listening if the rattle comes from the top of the engine, or from either side (not sure if the timing chain on your engine is at the front or the rear).

Also, make sure that your car is serviced using the correct MB oil which 229.5 (petrol) or 229.51 (Diesel).

And last, you can also consider this:

 

[Pabs400]

Thank you for your reply, it does have a full MB service history, it is due for a service at the end of this month, I’ll book it in tomorrow & mention the noise, in the meantime I’ll try & post a vid of the noise, If it was your car would you carry on driving it? Thanks Paul

 

[Petrol Pete]

^^^^ Tricky question that only you can answer but here is my 2p worth. Any engine with a full dealer service history and at just 36K miles should be 'rattle free' , if its something you have noticed that just popped up one day and is still there err on the side of caution. If my M113 V8 engine with 130000 miles on the clock started to rattle I would switch it off and call for recovery as cam chain (or any sizeable failure) would cost more to repair than the car is worth. There are a number of used M113 V8 engines available on-line, but of dubious history and a new one from MB is £35K and by all accounts they only have one in stock Keep us informed and good luck.

 

[grober]

You will have the newer 60 degree M276 V6 which has less timing gear problems than its predecessor.
Mercedes-Benz M276 engine - Wikipedia

As stated in your paint thread.

 

[NOMONEYBUTAMERC]

At just 4 years and 36k , assuming you have followed MB servicing requirements , I would most definitely not be expecting to pay for engine repairs. If it were my car I would take it straight in to MB rather than use it for next couple of weeks. Timing chain should not be an issue at this age/miles . Timing belts were introduced to numerous cars as they are quieter than chain drives , not necessarily more efficient . Chain when stretched becomes noisy as it runs over sprockets due to the fact its "pitch" has been extended , and it starts to eat the teeth! Next stage , which can be in tens or thousands of miles , is chain snaps , engine is forked !

 

[mercmancdi]

To listen to the rattle ,,to narrow down where it’s from ,,a wooden brush shaft held against engine with your ear on end , you can move it around to where the noise is coming from.

 

[Pabs400]

Thank you for all the advice, I’ve have just sent the sound off to a Mercedes technician & his exact words were “do not drive that car it’s the timing chain” he said he’s never seen this on a car this young, so my next call into Mercedes tomorrow morning will be interesting!!! I’ll keep you all posted

 

[markjay]

Thank you for all the advice, I’ve have just sent the sound off to a Mercedes technician & his exact words were “do not drive that car it’s the timing chain” he said he’s never seen this on a car this young, so my next call into Mercedes tomorrow morning will be interesting!!! I’ll keep you all posted

You could use your Mobilo cover to have the car taken to Mercedes.

 

[grober]

A quick forum search on M276 yields
The Complete M276 Engine thread

notable section reads
https://forums.mbclub.co.uk/attachments/291145d1405357906-warm-start-engine-knock-276-pdf.50931/

 

[Pabs400]

The latest is MB have the car & confirmed it’s the timing chain, their completely shocked, So now we’re waiting for a response back from MB Germany as to what to do next, bottom line I don’t want the car now so hopefully we can come to some compromise!!??.........

 

[BlackC55]

We've done a ton of timing chains in the past few month on various cars. Last week it was an 11 plate C250, before that an 11 plate SLK 250. One a little while ago (cant remember what on) that only had 22,000 on it and 4 years old. then one in which a customer had just bought his dream car, it was an E convertible but the engine size escapes me, only had 35k on it and again 4 years old.
Its certainly not a surprise/shocking. quite common actually!

Hope you get sorted and don't have to pay anything, I wouldn't want to at that age/mileage!

Natacha

 

[Pabs400]

How much dose the timing chain work cost on a E400?
MB Germany have come back & said they need to strip the left hand side of the engine just to find out exactly what it is. They say it’s 6 hours work which will cost us £720.00 let alone the cost of the actual problem!!! Really don’t think it’s fair we have to pay anything at all considering the age & mileage!!

 

[grober]

You need to get some " unknowns" in this equation determined. Mercedes want money up front to investigate the problem which will involve stripping a lot of bits off the front of the engine assuming this can be done with the engine in the car? On the face of it seems reasonable enough to guard against any owners lack of commitment to repair should a fault be found- but crucial to this arrangement should be the understanding that if a fault is found that Mercedes would stand good for the cost of any repair that follows!!! At Mercedes rates £720 would be a reasonable share of cost for an entire timing gear repair out of warranty and while "in there" it might be wise to replace the tensioner on the other "silent" bank also for example. With scenarios like this there is a degree of fluidity involved as costs may increase as the job goes on and the extent of any damage is determined so you might have to be prepared to pay more to save money in the long run. Of course a major cost in all this is Mercedes labour rates and this can be defrayed by using a reputable independant such as BlackC55 but you would probably lose any contribution Mercedes might make [ if any in this case ? ] to any repair.
So altho you want a definitive answer its unlikely you will get one from Mercedes. I would suggest you try to remove some fluidity from the situation by clarifying whether Mercedes will stand good for the cost/part cost of repair of any fault that's found [seems unlikely from what you say] and get a best case/worst case scenario quote for a timing gear repair from Olly [ BlackC55]?

 

[E55BOF]

Firstly, it's almost certainly not chain wear, just a tensioner which is slow to pump up on cold start. Yours has just started, and according to the MB bulletin for the M276 engine, 'no consequential damage is to be expected' (oh really? In what timescale?), so I doubt much harm has been done yet.

Yours will be a very late M276 V6 engine, which had the uprated (less leaky) tensioners installed from new, so the fix will be to install oil check valves so that the (hydraulic) tensioners do not drain down while the car is standing.

Before I bought my E63 (M157 engine - basically an M276, but with two more cylinders and a few () more horses), which might also have had the problem, I had a quote from Terry Gates to carry out the check valve repair if necessary. ISTR it was about £450 plus the parts. I'd suspect your repair would be pretty similar.

As Grober has implied, unless MB will commit to at least part of the overall cost as a goodwill payment - which I would hope they would, on a four-year-old car with only 36K miles done - your best, and much the cheapest, bet is likely to be a good independent.

 

[markjay]

I think the Catch 22 here is that MB are unlikely to commit to any goodwill contribution towards the repair cost until the fault has been identified, meaning that the OP will have to take a risk on the cost of the diagnostic process.

Personally I would cut my losses and take the car straight to a specialist, or otherwise just decide it's time to get a new (or new to me) car and trade it in as-is.

But of course in the event that MB are willing to commit upfront to a goodwill contribution towards the cost of repair, then this would be the best outcome.

(Incidentally, some years ago my Vauxhall Omega suffered timing chain failure one month after the warranty ran out, and Vauxhall contributed 75% of the cost of repair. )

 

[SingleE500mike]

I’ve read a bit about chain tensioners (and check valves) being problematic on the V8 biturbo (M278) engines. (Perhaps as stated above on V6 too). Same symptoms - noisey engine. They can be tightened but from what I remember, it’s quite labour intensive and can return. It’s one of the things that put me off buying a 4.7 tt E500 a few years ago. (I went for the M273 instead). However, like all these things, I don’t think it necessarily means every such engine has the problem as there will be thousands of these models across the range. I hope it gets diagnosed and sorted for you asap.

 

[grober]

Here's a tensioner replacement on an M276- engine out of the car for clarity but its possible with the engine in the car.

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and here's the install of the check valves mentioned by E55BOF- note the chain tensioner is not present / removed at the start of the video but is shown being replaced later.

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[Pabs400]

The final update off my E400 after a long meeting with MB from 10am to 3:15 pm is with all the repair work + service tyres & mot needed + the £720.00 for the engine diagnostics I could be looking at around 8-9000 pounds, so MB valued my car at the price it would be with nothing wrong, so i decided to buy the new E300 convertible as the deal they offered me was very good, I pick it up on the 29th of this month & will just draw a line under the old one, thanks for everyone’s advice

 

[Mr Filipov]

Wow, they really have pulled a fast one on you. Getting the chain done at an independent would cost less than a third of that price, at a guess, and I don’t know how much they valued your car at, but I would bet it would have been below market value. Decision is entirely yours at the end of the day, but I would not have gone for that deal.

They simply went, don’t want to pay out so we will just shove him in a new car.