W211 E55

[ricky s]

Hey all, the car is running beautifully. I love it. But a couple of questions- can I see the oil temperature in any way? Or do I need an E63 dash for that? And how do I get my headrests to pop up again? I’m sure there was more... thanks for any advice and insight.[/QUOTE

Hi PFP..The head rest reset on the W211 is manual as pointed out, the oil temp is available in the W211 E63 dash as you deem, probably the odd other thing as well, I have this dash fitment, but TBH, only ever looked at oil temp maybe twice myself, and really not explored what else it will do over the standard W211 E55, and again TBH honest, I do regret swapping this dash out, think the original white back ground AMG W211 dash stood out a little better, more so than the W211 E63, joys of modding your car!! Why do you need to look at oil temp, are you taking your car on a performance event..? Rgds R

 

[RelentlessForwardProgress]

Thanks, Ricky, that’s helpful. It was more curiosity and liking the idea of being able to see it I guess. I had oil temp on my 1983 Golf GTi mk1!

 

[Alex]

Oil pressure would have been more useful than temps I guess but you'd have to wire in a gauge.

 

[RelentlessForwardProgress]

Hi all, thought I’d give an update, I’ve had the car just over a year now. Have done a few things recently. I’ve more or less copied this content from my readers’ cars thread on PH, there may be some useful stuff here for other W211 or 55K owners.

It was originally a £68,000 car, so even though it’s now a 15 year old £6,800 car, the running costs are going to be... sufficient, understandably.

MB Medway, and Mike in particular, have been excellent since it first went to them a year ago on purchase. I’ve had a list of jobs to work on- which has really meant them work on- and with the exception of running down the battery sometimes when left for a week or more, the car has been great (and I think I have this one on the way to being solved). They had an SL55 in for some work too, in fact, Mike had read out the error codes and complied a job list and it had more than 10,000 errors and problems...

Last week, Mike changed the idlers, belts, water pump, supercharger bearing, all of which were past it at 135k miles. Once everything was stripped down, he found the the air conditioning compressor was also on its last legs- sent me a video of it, and we decided it would be mad not to replace it while everything was in pieces. A Mercedes one was something like £700, so a Behr one was sourced, for half the cost. It turned out to be a Mercedes one with the sticker removed- bonus!

[img]https://thumbsnap.com/s/DceiuN19.jpg[/img]|https://thumbsnap.com/DceiuN19 [img]https://thumbsnap.com/s/srQKsZkD.jpg[/img]|https://thumbsnap.com/srQKsZkD [img]https://thumbsnap.com/s/apBijSin.jpg[/img]|https://thumbsnap.com/apBijSin [img]https://thumbsnap.com/s/B7A9noc5.jpg[/img]|https://thumbsnap.com/B7A9noc5 [img]https://thumbsnap.com/s/goyVoPxa.jpg[/img]|https://thumbsnap.com/goyVoPxa [img]https://thumbsnap.com/s/4nvqi8D5.jpg[/img]|https://thumbsnap.com/4nvqi8D5 [img]https://thumbsnap.com/s/C74VZ9jn.jpg[/img]|https://thumbsnap.com/C74VZ9jn [img]https://thumbsnap.com/s/4YXYrMNE.jpg[/img]|https://thumbsnap.com/4YXYrMNE [img]https://thumbsnap.com/s/WZ6suFdk.jpg[/img]|https://thumbsnap.com/WZ6suFdk [img]https://thumbsnap.com/s/ReBzaygh.jpg[/img]|https://thumbsnap.com/ReBzaygh [img]https://thumbsnap.com/s/881RTx4A.jpg[/img]|https://thumbsnap.com/881RTx4A [img]https://thumbsnap.com/s/r19d4Rwx.jpg[/img]|https://thumbsnap.com/r19d4Rwx [img]https://thumbsnap.com/s/4jbr6Sst.jpg[/img]|https://thumbsnap.com/4jbr6Sst £700 Mercedes AC compressor [img]...wi18.jpg[/img]|https://thumbsnap.com/kekjwi18

I decided to change the coil and leads for cylinder 7 myself, it looked like the easiest job on the list. Mike said the engine has to be fully hot to have a chance of getting them out, so that’s going to be fun. Notice it's happening in the future rather than completed. Probably a 3/5 spanners job for me.

At my level of spannering, I did complete the new plastic boot edge thingy with new clips. Thank you, BolideMichael for the offer of the clips. I have a small supply myself now. Which means I can find other 1 spanner tasks to complete around the car.

Inside the car, my wife has asked for a longer recital of my E-number BMW talk as a regular feature of longer journeys. To facilitate this, we relented and have set up two iPhones with headphones for the junior progresses in the rear. To meet their fidelity standards, I searched for some window blinds, I'm always, always tempted to retrofit these on our cars, but for £100 I put "laitovo" ones in, which clip into place inside the window aperture. The kids appreciate them for their delicate little eyes and the quality of their film watching on long journeys. I didn’t use the matching rear window blind as that’s a bit gangster for me- and I'm used to the BMW roller one.

Then, I bit the bullet on what is something like a £1,500 job at MB Medway or anywhere else- the SBC unit. My car somehow has counted 600k brake presses, when they typically go out of service at 2 or 400,000. So it's something that absolutely would let me down in Bordeaux on a French national holiday in August. After some research, I found John at ecu-repair Mercedes Diagnostic | London Auto Electrician | BMW, Audi SBC repair in Mitcham for a refurbished SBC unit. I liked this guy. He taught himself how to refurbish the pumps, after his failed. I waited while he rebuilt mine including some preventative work on its ECU. It was cleaned up, reinstalled and the brakes bled. The caliper bleed nipples were all rusted and looked as if the fluid hadn’t been changed in a very long time.

[img]https://thumbsnap.com/s/fCckt1p6.jpg[/img]|https://thumbsnap.com/fCckt1p6

I haven't yet had the red message of doom except due to battery issues, it only appeared here because the SBC had been removed, which makes it slightly less functional
[img]https://thumbsnap.com/s/3UKcBNiV.jpg[/img]|https://thumbsnap.com/3UKcBNiV

[img]https://thumbsnap.com/s/ok9db2u4.jpg[/img]|https://thumbsnap.com/ok9db2u4

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It’s a very reasonable service, is good pre-emptive work done and I like the ability to rebuild components not simply throw modules away and replace with new. While I was there I had a new key from him, it’s one of the chrome sided ones from the facelift W211 and a bit more weighty, and a lot more presentable. My kids are massively impressed with it. Almost modern, Papa!

Sad, early 2000's Dad key
[img]https://thumbsnap.com/s/Pbpp7ywi.jpg[/img]|https://thumbsnap.com/Pbpp7ywi

Posh mid 2000's Dad key
[img]https://thumbsnap.com/s/xsRSeFZC.jpg[/img]|https://thumbsnap.com/xsRSeFZC

I'm driving it a bit, and fiddling with the wiring under the seats to remedy the battery drain. I'm fairly sure it's due to the seat modules not fully going to sleep, and that it can be rectified by replacing the modules, or by splicing the constant power to the seats into the switched power wire. There are many videos and guides to doing this, using a little plastic tap connector, but my wiring is different from the W203 Mercedes usually seen in the guides- my switched and ground wires are very weedy, with a more beefy constant wire... so I'm uncertain about cutting and splicing a big wire into a thin wire. I never completely finished my automotive electrician course, so I'm pausing before setting fire to anything.


ETA I’ve not been fiddling with the seat wiring while driving!

 

[AMGeed]

Nice write up and good to see the upkeep on the E55.
Unfortunately, I can't see any of the photos posted in the above post?
Maybe need to make them public for viewing?

 

[RelentlessForwardProgress]

Unfortunately the Stereo fitting is not happening until after our 1400 mile summer holiday journey, awful planning! But I did have a dream two nights ago where MB Medway man was saying (again), “but do try to change that coil pack before you drive to Spain. They’re awful to do. You need to get the engine really hot or it will never come out, it’s not a fun job.”

So yesterday with a slight nervous twitch I began the job, with my reliable and mechanically interested number 1 son. He left after the disposable gloves didn’t fit well, and I pushed ahead, unclipping the air boxes, removing the clip at the rear of the engine where they enter the supercharger (I didn’t snap the plastic!), and then facing the coil packs. We had the engine lukewarm, and honestly, I started to feel ok when I saw they were numbered, presumably by a caring previous owner who’d replaced them previously, and then my T25 torx fitted, loosened the coil pack, my cack handed fingers I clipped the coil pack- the right one- without snapping another clip, and I removed the twin wires (2 spark plugs per cylinder). At this point I knew something was about to go wrong. Then my glove split and a little bit fell down by the belts. Barbecue to have to the rescue and I carried on. Sorry if I’m over egging this, but it was all going so well. Fitted the new Bosch coil pack and two wires, managed to clip them onto the spark plugs, and onto the coil pack. Then my daughter helped me check the air filters. K&Ns, Well oiled and not very dirty at all.

Everything clipped back on. I somehow avoided breaking a plastic clip into the throttle body, and daughter and I started it up. It died almost immediately! Tried again, and all is good with the world! Robert Feller, AMG technician, and engine builder of this engine, would be proud of me.

I recognise this is a complete joke in the context of so many amazing hands on and capable owners, but it was a task that went exactly as it should, and left me with a fully happy 5.4 litre lump. No more codes from cylinder 7. I’m very happy and now just hopeful we are allowed to drive to Spain on Friday.

 

[Gbrowncls55]

the aux battery often gets ignored. I had the battery light come up on mine (cls55) and it was the aux. Ordered a new one from ebay and replaced it. The old one was still the original 05 dated item. So thats 15years for an aux. quite impressive I suppose.

 

[John]

My car somehow has counted 600k brake presses, when they typically go out of service at 2 or 400,000.

There was a firmware update from MB which quietened down the pump and increased the limit to 600,000 so your car most likely had it applied at some stage.