They Said it Can't be Fixed - A Journey to the Inside of a Mercedes Bluetec

tester (Forum Supporter) said:

So it's breaking in new and imaginative ways...

I do believe I have solved all of the weird electrical gremlins in the van I spent so much quality time with.  It would run fine but under heavy acceleration, it would set all sorts of weird codes, kill fueling, etc.

The fuel injectors are piezoelectric. You jam the casing full of crystals, bung some high voltage at them, they change shape and open the pintle.  One of them was faulty, per scope data vs. known good waveforms.

After replacing one (1) injector, I had the engine running in the shop with all of the shrouding/noise abatement off to look for fuel leaks.  Pff pff pff pff with the engine running.  One of the other two injectors on that bank, NOT the one I just did, had a leaky seal to the head.  Pulled it off and thankfully almost all of the erosion was in the injector.  So it got replaced, too.

No more weirdness!

Then the epiphany.  Piezoelectric.  Electricity makes the crystals change shape and changing shape makes electricity.  You can take an injector, stick a voltmeter across its terminals, and flex it and measure voltage.

What happens when the engine is at high boost, high fueling, and all that combustion pressure is heaving past the injector body from the leak? How much voltage does that make, and where is the only place it can go?

"Sir, we found your electrical glitches, you have a leaky injector gasket."

Riiiiight... 

In reply to yupididit :

Yeah, it's kind of surprising what they've covered in the extended warranty:

• All the emissions exhaust parts (cat, DPF, etc)
• The DEF system (not sure if the heater is part of the "supply module" or not...)
• The diesel emissions sensors (EGT, NOx, particulate, and lambda sensor)
• Fuel injectors
• Throttle body
• EGR system
• Intake manifold
• Turbocharger and actuator
• ECU
• Cylinder head (cams, valves, springs, keepers, seats, caps, and manifold studs)
• Timing chain
• Intake pressure sensor

As I read that, I'm further irritated.  Is not the "lambda sensor" the O2 sensor?  That means that Jeff Wyler "cheaper in the country" Mercedes let my vehicle leave with a check engine light illuminated for two items that should have been covered by the warranty (swirl motor and O2 sensor) AND denied me warranty coverage on my turbocharger.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

It is amazing to me that things can be that sensitive to weird voltage.  Not that the sensitivity itself is weird, but that under "normal" circumstances, the electricity can be made clean enough that it'll ever work in the first place!

Yes, lambda sensor = exhaust gas oxygen sensor = O² sensor = EGO = .....

Edit: Didn't you install a new swirl flap motor before going in for recall?

I wish my 08 next extended warranty.

Minor update on our sprinter with the rebuilt R320 engine: It hasn't blown up yet! We used it to move 400 miles with a 12 foot U-Haul trailer in tow. I think I got it pretty close to 10k lbs combined weight. Somehow the 154hp engine did the job while returning 17.9mpg at 55mph. the CEL is permanently on with P2626-1 (can't regen DPF) and a code for the missing throttle plate. The DPF is safely stored in a box in the back of the van and EGR is blocked off at the intake. No oil consumption, no leaks, no smoke, no limp home mode. I think there's a chance this might become a reliable vehicle. 

MB in their infinite wisdom decided the van doesn't need a temp gauge so I used torque to keep an eye on things. The fuel gauge on this thing is an LCD with 10 bars. When it got down to one bar and low fuel warning light torque was still showing 25% fuel. I kept going,  covering almost 100 miles at one bar. Go figure. 

I call it van Tetris. 

FJ40Jim said:

Yes, lambda sensor = exhaust gas oxygen sensor = O² sensor = EGO = .....

Edit: Didn't you install a new swirl flap motor before going in for recall?

Yep, I sure did.  I put a brand new Pierburg unit in there and it operated flawlessly before Wyler touched it.  According to the sticker on the hood and the documentation for EMC5, part of the AEM was to put a new one in.  I'm not sure if I missed that the first time or if they changed the process to include that.  Had I known that they were going to replace it anyway, I would have re-used my old one which never worked because I'm pretty sure there are at least two different M55 motors that are very similar and the cross-reference chart isn't quite figured out.

In reply to Glutton4pain :

That's awesome!  I agree that the lack of instrumentation is kind of an odd oversight.  With all the whizbang-ness that's built in and all the displays and sensors that are already there, you'd think it would have been easy to provide gauges.  That's hardly a problem that's unique to Mercedes, unfortunately.

I've only ever towed with gassers before, but I have been consistently impressed by how well it tows.  It rarely needs to downshift on the highway, it never really feels like it's straining, and it returns nearly double the fuel economy that the Excursion did when laden.  Granted, the Ex could pull an extra couple tons, but still.

There's something wrong with my ML, because it barely gets 25mpg when driven nicely, and gets 13 towing a 3500# camper at 61mph. This is on the dash display, but calculating from gas receipt & odometer gives very similar numbers.

By comparison, last summer I borrowed a 2016-ish F350 6.7L and got 16+ towing the same trailer to & from Cincinnati.

Got a text that my car was ready so I dashed up and picked it up.  It was freshly washed, they gave me a cookie which was delicious, and told me that it was about $6,000 worth of work that the warranty covered.

And by the time I got back home, the check engine light is back on again.  My generic OBDII reader says a P2008 is current with a P200A pending.  Those both appear to point towards a problem with the swirl valve again.  D'oh!

In reply to wae :

The gift that keeps on giving. How much money is MB losing on these engines? 

In reply to FJ40Jim :

I Suspect my fuel economy towing would be much worse if the van was still doing regen cycles every couple hundred miles. I don't think MBs early DPF regen setup is very efficient. ​​​

In reply to Glutton4pain :

Good point about the Regen. The updated software is definitely going to use more fuel doing DPF Regen, and more cat piss cleaning the catalyst.

I called up and made an appointment to bring it back next week, so we'll see what they have to say.  Without an updated version of DAS, it's hard to say exactly, but the generic code appears to indicate that the problem is with the manifold runner sensor on bank 1.  That's the one that the service advisor told me that they found melted wiring on and they replaced.  Naturally, to get to that sensor you've got to take the turbocharger and everything off (again), so while the sensor is "only" $216, ASRA says there's 4.9 hours' worth of labor to get to it along with a bunch of gaskets and seals that have to be replaced.  Crazy, innit?

My concern is that they tear it back down, find that sensor melted again, and find that "something else" which isn't part of the warranty is causing that.  Flip side, though, is that if they can figure it out, it's probably worth it at this point, especially if it has some commonality with the occasional no-start issue.

Just for grins and giggles, I went down the list of parts that they put on and checked MSRP.  For the parts alone, the total comes to $5,327.95.  And ASRA says the labor to replace the swirl motor is 3.7 hours.  I'm not sure what their labor rate is exactly, but I think it's around $175-180, so another $650 or so?  That gets us to the $6k number that the service advisor said when he turned the car over to me.

I'm not entirely sure what the cost of the consent decree work was.  They've got some weird parts kits that are hard to look up and to know exactly what's in there, but I think if you were buying the parts retail it would be close to $14,000 plus 16 hours of labor, so we're talking about $16k-$17k worth of work if you were going to roll in to the shop and have them do it on your own dime.  So that means on a vehicle that kbb says is worth $6k on trade in or $9k as a private party sale, Mercedes has paid about $25k-$27k if you include the $3,500 in settlement money.  And I've got another 36,000 miles of extended warranty left.  I mean, I get it - they're not paying full retail for parts and I assume the dealer is getting boned a bit in warranty labor, but still.

It seems like they would have been better served to give me a check for $15k and then crush the car.  I would have taken that deal.

wae said:

I'm not entirely sure what the cost of the consent decree work was.  They've got some weird parts kits that are hard to look up and to know exactly what's in there, but I think if you were buying the parts retail it would be close to $14,000 plus 16 hours of labor, so we're talking about $16k-$17k worth of work if you were going to roll in to the shop and have them do it on your own dime.  So that means on a vehicle that kbb says is worth $6k on trade in or $9k as a private party sale, Mercedes has paid about $25k-$27k if you include the $3,500 in settlement money.  And I've got another 36,000 miles of extended warranty left.  I mean, I get it - they're not paying full retail for parts and I assume the dealer is getting boned a bit in warranty labor, but still.

It seems like they would have been better served to give me a check for $15k and then crush the car.  I would have taken that deal.

^ This. ^

VW bought back all the TDIs they could, crushed the nasty ones, fixed & sold the decent ones. Fixed VWs had the same warranty, but they were warranting 2013 cars in 2018.

Warranting 2010 Mercedes' in 2023 is an expensive (foolish?) proposition.

Just got back from the dealer.  The swirl motor that they just put on to replace the defective one that came with the new intake manifolds?  Yeah, it was also defective.  So they're ordering up yet another swirl motor and when it comes in I'll drop it off, take a loaner, and they'll swap it out.  Again.

I can't even be upset about it, though.  I only hope that this is costing Mercedes enough money that someone, at some point, will say that maybe we shouldn't be running wiring harnesses underneath parts that are expensive and time-consuming to remove.  Oh, any maybe we should do a little better quality control on those parts that we have to spend a lot of money to get to.

Damn it.

The GLE350 loaner makes the same noises that the E350 makes.  So now the stupid Night Court theme is going to be stuck in my head again.

It was getting really tiresome to drive der Scheißwagen around in it's limp-home mode, so I'm glad to have been able to finally drop it off this morning.  Let's hope that this new swirl motor is the good one.

Just to update my recent experience...

Previously had a code for "Air in the fuel rail because you are a dümkopf and ran out of fuel." After the line nut they left loose on top of #2 injector was tightened, the air in rail code has not come back.  That's 1 code fixed.

Was having problems with pissed-off rear SAM not wanting to open rear hatch or operate some of the taillights. Had a dozen random codes, which I dutifully confirmed were bogus. Pulled out the SAM for a few weeks (months?) while trying to decide if could/should be sent out for repair, or maybe buy a new one preprogrammed for my vehicle. Needed to move the truck, so reinstalled the bad SAM, reconnected the battery and it started right up. Noticed the dash didn't have messages for inop CHMSL or license lights. Checked it out and everything was working again! 

Drove to Pitt race last weekend, towing trailer, ran great, got 14mpg with a tailwind. Dash blew up on the way: No ABS! No ESP! Visit Workshop immediately! Had code for implausible wheel speed signal, no biggie. Driving home Sunday evening in the rain, hit the brake pedal a little aggressively on polished asphalt, ABS pump went BRRRRT, warning lights spontaneously cleared and ABS rejoined the party. That's 2 codes fixed.

It still has 20 codes related to "no rear Sam on Bus, no communication with Sam". Can't clear these body codes with old SnapOn scanner. Hopefully they will die off after 50 drive cycles with no recurrence.

My current problem remains no activation of electric trailer brake controller. I have ideas for that, haven't had time to execute.

In reply to FJ40Jim :

It amazes me how, uh, touchy the electronics are on these things.

In reply to wae :

Especially since much of the actual hardware is shared with other vehicles with a perception of solid reliability.

I like to say that 'Perception is reality'.

We're pushing the limits of that truism.

In reply to FJ40Jim :

It is easier to count the number of vehicles that do NOT have an ABS unit made by Bosch or ATE.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

I do find a significant amount of..  something...  I don't think irony is the right term...  in that every borked up electrical component on the Saab has "Made in Germany" stamped on it somewhere.

(My daughter totally doesn't understand why I'm more than a little disappointed that none of it says "Made in West Germany")

In reply to wae :

It is not as if SAAB had many other countries to get parts from.  EVERYBODY gets stuff from Germany, and they are, like, right THERE.

What amuses me is that the only parts my Volvo seems to have issues with were either American or Swedish.... the Japanese transmission is stout, the German electronics are great, the Italian brakes... have a lot to work with, but are pretty much maintenance free.  And while it isn't Motorola's fault that the suspension module was placed in the cabin where saltwater could eat it, Haldex (Swedish company) really should have known better than to put a control module outside the car, under the lowest part of the drivetrain, with the connectors pointed up so any water that gets in can't get out, directly over the exhaust system so the connectors can melt.

wae said:

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

I do find a significant amount of..  something...  I don't think irony is the right term...  in that every borked up electrical component on the Saab has "Made in Germany" stamped on it somewhere.

(My daughter totally doesn't understand why I'm more than a little disappointed that none of it says "Made in West Germany")

 

Oddly enough I found a handful of parts on my 97 W210 stamped with West Germany. 

I did a second trip back up to NorCal to pick up yet more of our junk from our old house with the Sprinter pulling another U-Haul trailer. As I'm making my way down through the East Bay in the slow lane I hit a pothole, a very big pothole apparently. A few seconds later I noticed on torque app that the temperature gauge spiked from the usual 190f to 210f in a matter of seconds. Pull over to the side of the freeway, coolant is pouring out from the lower radiator hose. Guh! The impact of the pothole had somehow popped the lower radiator hose out of the radiator.

Mercedes doesn't use hose clamps, they use some kind of clip mechanism and an o-ring the seal of radiator to the hose. Pop the radiator hose back in and I poured the gallon of water I had with me. No leaks, great I thought. But the van needed at at least another gallon of water. Call AAA roadside, tell them I need water. Nope, sorry we don't do that. We can swap out a flat tire, replace a battery or tow you off the road but we will not provide water. WTF? Fine, tow me to the nearest grocery store so I can buy water. Sure, but we can't tow the U-Haul trailer, You have to call U-Haul for that. F*#$ YOU!

At this point I give up on AAA, tried calling a couple of mobile mechanics in the area, none of them are available for hours. I started looking around on Google maps and found a 7-Eleven 1.5 mi away off the freeway. Left the van on the side of the freeway, hiked out to 7-Eleven and back with a couple of gallons of drinking water, poured it into the reservoir, drove the rest of the 400ish miles home without incident. 

Lesson learned, carry more water. Not only does the van not have a coolant temperature gauge but my low coolant warning sensor in the overflow tank is not working. So I have a new lower radiator hose and a reservoir tank on order. Good times. 

On the plus side the van did 20.8mpg pulling the U-Haul 8x5 trailer vs 17.9mpg pulling the 12x6 trailer I had on the last trip. 

In the country of origin department, I'm shocked at how many electrical parts are labeled "made in China" on this 2010 W164. True, the vehicle isn't assembled in der Vaterland, but many of the components, like the entire engine & transmission, are made in Germany, then assembled into a car-like object in Alabammy, USA. I was in the PnP JY recently and noticed some other MB cars had relay boxes full of China components, so I guess it's a modern fact of life, even in a 'premium' car line.

In reply to Glutton4pain :

Yeah, I'm not really sure what problem those clips are supposed to be solving.  Like so many things that Merc seems to do, they're technically superior as long as conditions remain ideal.  They also don't make some of those clips available as individual components.  When I managed to lose the one that attached the radiator hose to the thermostat, I had to buy a new thermostat housing to get the clip.  Not cool.  And it still weeps just a tiny bit of coolant every once in a while if you move the hose the wrong way.

They used to have such nice hose clamps, too....