Sounds like you did good. It is worth getting a proper set of sockets instead of the universal stuff. HD and Lowes by me both had them on the rack. The HD set was cheaper.
Sounds like you did good. It is worth getting a proper set of sockets instead of the universal stuff. HD and Lowes by me both had them on the rack. The HD set was cheaper.
G_Body_Man wrote: In reply to wae: Oil from the PCV is a recurring thing on those. Buy a catch can, and never look back.
This
mazdeuce wrote: Sounds like you did good. It is worth getting a proper set of sockets instead of the universal stuff. HD and Lowes by me both had them on the rack. The HD set was cheaper.
Oh, I got the sockets, believe me! But there are some fasteners on the car that have a regular nut on an E-torx bolt and the universal wrenches do a good job of holding the bolt. I can see where under a serious amount of torque, it'd get pretty ugly pretty fast, though! Besides, it was an opportunity to add a few wrenches to my toolbox and I'm weak...
yupididit wrote:G_Body_Man wrote: In reply to wae: Oil from the PCV is a recurring thing on those. Buy a catch can, and never look back.This
I've heard that from the Sprinter forums and I think it's a good idea. This certainly can't be good:
And this isn't so great, either:
The turbos are known to push a lot of oil but damn!
Yeah, there does seem to be a lot there, but on the other hand, it's probably been about 20,000 miles since that intake tube was removed if the maintenance history is to be believed. You don't need to pull that for the oil filter, but it does have to come off for the fuel filter, I'm pretty sure, and that would have been the 80k service. So, after 20k I could see that as being normalish.
My 10k resistor didn't do the trick and neither does the "proper" 4.7k Ohm one. I suspect that they've managed to sneak a couple more sensors into the pathway there and are actually monitoring the state of the stupid flaps. The linkage doesn't look like it's broken, so if I understand it properly I have either a broken motor (which is likely, given it was getting an oil bath from the intake tube) or the flaps are clogged up inside the intake manifolds (which is also pretty likely). Looking and feeling around in there, I think I might be able to sneak the motor out of there without pulling the turbo or the intake, so I may try to do that and when I have it out I can see if the disconnected flap linkage moves. Looks like a new motor is under $150 from our friends at Rock Auto, so not a real big deal, if that is indeed what's wrong.
The upside is that it drives great right now. No limp mode at all, just the MIL. Must be a German thing...
I guess this should probably die off and get re-started as a build-ish thread... I'm trying to figure out where best to source the various parts and stuff I need to do the 100,000 mile service plus a trans fluid change and a replacement of the swirl motor. I came across part number 164-600-15-07 for $46,425. "Body Assembly, with sunroof, with pwr fld 3rd seat, with auto liftgate". Just in case you weren't sure, it's labeled as part #1 in the illustration:
For just over $46k, I can buy a new body for a 5 year old car. That's pretty epic.
In reply to wae:
Mercedes still makes everything for everything. I wouldn't be surprised if they could supply you with a brand new pagoda-roof SL bodyshell.
They sure don't make w123 limo sway bars anymore lol.
I can answer my original question definitively: No, it is not an awful choice. Without a doubt, when things go wrong, it gets complicated fast, but when it's running right, it is amazing. 18.5 mpg pulling a challenge car with the cruise set to 70 and it doesn't ever need to downshift except in actual mountains.
As an added bonus, I got tagged while parked here at the challenge:
As an FYI I have the sedan version of your SUV
The 2011 E350 Bluetec, same engine the 3.0 turbo OM642. I bought it for 27k with 27k miles on it in August 2015. First year I owned it no issues at all. Past year has been expensive. Claimed oil pan leaks with 2 part oil pan that required removing trans and subframe while they were in there leaking rear main seal and factory update 3k, (this might have been a misdiagnose) oil cooler seal leak on top of engine (common failure point on these) sits in V of motor on top and leaks oil everywhere often looks like a pan leak 2k, Fan went out, which causes the engine to stop running the AC/other accessories to keep car from overheating this went on for quite a while and ended up killing the battery and the fan, 1200-1500 bucks. Was not really apparent until AC stopped blowing cold when it was hot but was fine if it was cooler out.
Also have a CEL for the auxility DEF tank heater unit P20BE.P20BD for over a year now that does not seem to impact it.
That being said, I now have 67k miles on it and continue to average just under 31mpg. I get 38mpg on the highway with cruise set to 80, its obscenely comfortable (I drove it back to San Diego from a fly and drive to Arkansas in 3? days) its pretty much the best daily ever despite not being in love with the transmission at times.
Malone tuning has a tune for it that can delete DPF/DEF stuff and also add some power to the tune of 40-50hp and another 100lbft of torque
As long as it keeps going and nothing else weird fails for me which at this point all the big stuff has pretty much happened I am content to put many many more miles on it since it really is a great car. Mine has the radar cruise which is super nice in traffic also . 200hp and 400ish lb ft of torque makes for a fun daily even in a big girl
Tow rating on mine is 3500 but thats limited due to the payload not the gearing/engine
In reply to Jaynen :
That's a very pretty car!
I know my oil cooler seals were already done, but I live in fear of the timing chain rattle starting. Or, of course, the oil cooler seals failing again...
I looked at the Malone tune and I've considered it, but I'd be looking at just shy of a grand plus a trip to Louisville to have it done in addition to the cost of physically removing the egr, dpf, etc. I do need to find some time and pull everything back apart to replace the gaskets under the turbo that I had to reuse and try a different swirl motor.
You're so right about it being a good place to spend a lot of time. I sat in mine for 13 and a half hours yesterday, towing through the smokies and when I got out wasn't stiff or cramped or anything!
FWIW, if you live where it never gets below 11 degrees F, you don't need a DEF heater, but the computer is still going to monitor that circuit because it could cause emissions to go out of range if it fails.
Cool thread. I've definitely thought of getting one instead of a pickup to replace my Tahoe. Definitely a budget baller type of vehicle that still makes truck sounds
wae said:In reply to Jaynen :
That's a very pretty car!
I know my oil cooler seals were already done, but I live in fear of the timing chain rattle starting. Or, of course, the oil cooler seals failing again...
I looked at the Malone tune and I've considered it, but I'd be looking at just shy of a grand plus a trip to Louisville to have it done in addition to the cost of physically removing the egr, dpf, etc. I do need to find some time and pull everything back apart to replace the gaskets under the turbo that I had to reuse and try a different swirl motor.
You're so right about it being a good place to spend a lot of time. I sat in mine for 13 and a half hours yesterday, towing through the smokies and when I got out wasn't stiff or cramped or anything!
I might try it once I have a running driving third car like my track car project. Then I will just mail them the ECU and see how it goes and try to find out what a local muffler shop would charge to make the dpf delete. EGR does not need to be physically removed from my talks with them just the DPF because if you do not remove the DPF it will clog up quickly on the tune. I drove my buddies 2015 WRX all weekend at VIR and getting back in my car to drive home just made me fall in love again. It hustles well and the diesel is really tuned well to highway speeds. At low speeds so much shifting but when cruising/passing the torque is just electric 60-80-100+ very quickly and drama free
In reply to wae :
I passed you on the way north Sunday morning. Recognized the Challenge car, but hadn't noticed the tow vehicle until then. I did comment to my co-travellers wondering how well it towed. Now we know !
It was awesome talking to you about this beast, and I thought it deserved the sticker as a sort of good luck charm. Hopefully it works in that direction.
mazdeuce said:It was awesome talking to you about this beast, and I thought it deserved the sticker as a sort of good luck charm. Hopefully it works in that direction.
I don't know if he would want your kind of "luck" 
How does a sheet of 4x8 fit in the back of one of these? I assume you wouldn’t be able to close the hatch but would it fit on the floor between the wheel wells?
I haven't tried to move a sheet of anything, but I think it would be a very tight fit at best and likely near impossible without the hatch staying open. I've not measured, but there's no way there's 4 feet between the wheel wells in the rear, so you'd have to angle it. I did show up at Home Depot in the spring to load something like 25 bags of mulch in the back. The guys there were slightly surprised that a dude in a Mercedes wanted to haul mulch. They were really surprised that a dude in a Mercedes pulled out some work gloves and started loading mulch along with them!
For the parish festival I pulled my trailer loaded down with 100 bales of straw and it hauled that effortlessly. The only problem I had was that the air suspension lifted the rear so much because of the weight that I didn't have enough trailer jack to unhook the trailer with the straw on it - as I put the jack down and pulled the weight off the wagon, the wagon kept lifting! All I had to do was open and close a door to trigger Airmatic to re-level the wagon, but it really demonstrated how much that system can do to make towing easier.
One thing that isn't so cool is that you apparently have to have M-B tech reprogram the rear SAM if you want to use a trailer with LED lights. Otherwise it tries to get smart and tell you that your lights aren't working. I'll admit, though, that checking the lights by just hitting the brake, then using each turn signal without having to have an assistant, reflection, or running around the back is really nice.
I'm guessing that by Euro standards, this would be the last step before getting a full-on Truck truck!
Any updates to this? Starting to look at ML's and GL's since I'm sick of 15mpg from my Tahoe. Would like a diesel or EcoBoost pickup, but can't afford anything around the $10k range.
Well, it's been just under 20k miles and almost 11 months of ownership and there's good and bad.
As to the most recent discussion in the thread, forget 4x8 sheets. Even diagonally, the rear hatch has more like 45ish inches of width. That said, with both rear rows folded, I do get a nice flat load deck and it will swallow a decent amount of cargo.
Most of my initial problems stemmed from the fact that the turbo was not actually connected to the exhaust pipe, so there was a lot of soot and heat blowing around the engine and the fuel pressure sensor and the swirl motor were literally melted. Those are expensive-ish parts and the swirl motor is hard to get to. My swirl motor remains non-functional and I have a check engine light because either I have the wrong replacement part or some part of the wiring harness is cooked and I haven't found it yet. There's no problem with how it drives, but the MIL is always on.
I've developed an oil leak. These things are prone to leaking from the oil cooler seals and despite the fact that this one is old enough that the "updated" purple seals should have been put on before it left Alabama and despite the fact that the service history shows that they were already replaced once, I am assuming that is the source of my leak since it's the most common. I'm waiting for better weather to coincide with extra time so I can get in there with some brake cleaner and figure out exactly where the oil is coming from. For now, it's just annoying and I carry around extra oil in the back. That's another thing: All the fluids apparently are freshly pressed from mythical creatures that live in Bavarian forests, so you can't just pop into your closest FLAPS and expect to be able to purchase oil. Gas stations are right out. I've found kits that have all the genuine M-B parts and gaskets to replace the oil cooler seals and the swirl motor and they're about $500-$600. When I confirm that it's the oil cooler seals, I will likely buy one of those kits and spend a couple days doing the work. Everything is very tightly packaged so it's not particularly difficult, it's just a little tedious.
For a while, I had a problem where if you tried to restart it within between 5-30 minutes of shutting off the engine, it just wouldn't start. No idea what was causing it, but it stopped doing that and has been fine. Absolutely nothing on the vehicle was changed, so I'm making an assumption that it was bad fuel. I still cringe every time I come out of a store and turn the key, though. I also live in fear of timing chain problems which, depending on whom you listen to, are either way overblown or nearly a certainty.
Trailer lights are a real pain in the rear because it tries to do all sorts of diagnostics about lights and things and doesn't understand LEDs and is very sensitive to the grounds on the trailer.
But while we're talking about trailers, let's talk about why I wanted this thing to begin with: Tow pig duty. 400ft-lbs of torque makes a 4,500-5,000 pounds of trailer feel like nothing. The Airmatic system levels out the ride and it has enough wheelbase to feel planted on the road and is short enough to be very maneuverable in tight quarters. Towing to the Challenge and back last year was amazing: With the cruise set at 72 for the whole tip that wasn't in the mountains of Tennessee, I got 18.5mpg calculated based on miles traveled and diesel pumped. The mileage display on the dash is stupidly optimistic so ignore that. In the mountains, I didn't push things too hard and got 16mpg.
When I'm not towing, my family of 5 fits very nicely without even needing the third row, although that makes it nicer for long trips. I've not driven that many luxury type vehicles, but I've ridden in several and Mercedes really knows how to build a comfortable vehicle. It's quiet, the seats are soft, all the appointments inside are nice to touch, and it looks the part. The only area they cheaped out on is the radio. Head units that do Bluetooth for phone calls but can't be bothered to also do it for media streaming are a major pet peeve of mine and even in 2012, Mercedes apparently hadn't figured that out yet. So, I use an aux-in cable through my phone's headphone jack and grit my teeth while I enjoy the heated steering wheel and rain-sensing automatic wipers. Who knew those were things I couldn't live without? Fuel mileage around town without the trailer is between 18-20mpg typically. I've gotten better than that on all-highway tanks of fuel - having over 500 miles of range is a beautiful thing as long as you have a strong bladder!
The net of it is that I really love this thing. It can be a little high maintenance and the parts aren't cheap, but so far I find it to be quite worth it.
In reply to wae :
Awesome, thanks for the review. Did you have your SAM recoded for the LED trailer lights? I'll be using this with a 20ft open trailer. Do you have a WDH for your set up?
You'll need to log in to post.
