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

FJ40Jim said:

wae said:

Went to the yard and got six injectors, the fuel return hose assembly, and an engine cover for under $50.

That's a Junkyard score!

I went to the PnP in Columbus for half price day on 7/5. Unfortunately, they had just bulldozed clean the mercedes row that had a gas powered ML350, with my bodystyle, and the sedan with the OM642. So a total bust in the MB department at local yard.

Mine is running slightly rough very rarely, but it coughs up a code for "bad #1 injector" at the same time. Wanna sell an injector? I'll double your money!

Yours might be running bad because the first cat is missing and the O2 sensors are upset. Also, it's running on 2 MAFs that are 12years old and from the JY. They calibration drift over time, and are fragile. Bottom line, it has to run better after 2 new cats, O2 sensors, 2 new MAFs, reflash and injector balance at the dealership. Also, the dealership is supposed to give you back a vehicle that runs good enough to pass emissions testing, no pending codes, all monitors clear.

My Central Ohio dealership has pushed my AEM appointment back, and now it's on indefinite hold because (they say) the EGR valve is on intergalactic backorder. What's the name of the dealer near you? I'll call them to see if they have the parts... after yours is done, of course!

That sedan with the OM642 is the exact one that I got my intake tube and alternator from!  How awesome would it have been if you would have had some parts scavenged from the same car on yours!  haha!

I am pretty sure that I didn't screw up the timing and I can't think of anything other hard part that would be causing this type of issue, so I'm with you: it's gotta be a sensor (or lack thereof!) that is tripping up the engine.  I've ordered an OpenPort 2.0 and I'm trying to decide on a Xentry download option to see if I can fiddle with it a bit myself.  I have seen bad sensors on OM642s before where everything starts to run better when you unplug the MAFs.  Apparently when there's no MAF signal, it stops reading a bunch of the sensors and just uses its own tables which tends to smooth things out.  That's the next thing I want to try. 

If that doesn't do it, you're right, they are supposed to give me something that will pass emissions and then give me a warranty on it.  But the better it's running when I drop it off, the less chance that they're going to find something in there to charge me for!

My appointment is with Mercedes Benz of Ft. Mitchell in (surprise!) Ft. Mitchell, KY.  Despite not really being "my people", and despite the fact that they lost both my car and the key to my car for a rather hilarious extended period of time (documented back in the first few pages of this thread), they've been okay to me.  Their number is 859-331-1500 and they'll schedule you for a time when they have a loaner available.  I have also had good luck with getting parts from their online store.  Good discount off MSRP on OEM parts, but I also don't have to pay shipping since I can just drive over there.

You want an injector?  I'll ship you an injector for $free-fifty.  Just PM me your address and I'll drop it in a flat rate box.  Consider it a sharing of the wealth and a thank you for the technical support!  Let me know what your current injector's code is and if I happen to have one with the same code, I can send that.  Unlikely, but worth a shot, right?  I assume you've got plenty of the Special Ceramic Grease?  If not, I can put a little of that in a baggie along with it - I'll never use this whole jar. 

Oh dear Lord in heaven I hope I never find myself in a situation where I have to use this whole jar....  that would be way more OM642s than I ever hope to work on for the rest of my days....

Oh, something else that I was thinking about earlier...  Ever since I cleared out all the codes a few dozen starts ago, none of the codes for the M55 swirl motor have been set.  Before the tear down, it seemed like the flaps were moving okay, but the swirl motor that I bought the first time was a different part number than the one Mercedes says I should have.  It looked almost identical and was used on SOME GL350s, apparently, but for some reason they have several different instances of these and the interchange databases are not all correct.  So to those of you in the future looking to replace your swirl motor, check EPC with your VIN first and cross-reference from there.  Don't trust any third-party interchange data.

Yes!  Disconnecting the two MAP sensors on the intake snorkel and now it drives quite well around the block!  I'm going to try a slightly bigger adventure now!

Rock rock on!

This means there is room to haul a junker over there for the Challenge, right?

In reply to eastsideTim :

As soon as I get the patch panels welded into the Miata, yeah!

Also, we have a better tow vehicle.  At least in terms of avoiding bankruptcy at the pump.

I actually kind of like the sounds it makes without the exhaust.  Nice and grumbly with fun turbo whine sounds.

wae said:

I actually kind of like the sounds it makes without the exhaust.  Nice and grumbly with fun turbo whine sounds.

See, just need to add a stack through the hood.

eastsideTim said:

wae said:

I actually kind of like the sounds it makes without the exhaust.  Nice and grumbly with fun turbo whine sounds.

See, just need to add a stack through the hood.

Rollin' Scheiß!

wae said:

FJ40Jim said:

wae said:

Went to the yard and got six injectors, the fuel return hose assembly, and an engine cover for under $50.

That's a Junkyard score!

I went to the PnP in Columbus for half price day on 7/5. Unfortunately, they had just bulldozed clean the mercedes row that had a gas powered ML350, with my bodystyle, and the sedan with the OM642. So a total bust in the MB department at local yard.

Mine is running slightly rough very rarely, but it coughs up a code for "bad #1 injector" at the same time. Wanna sell an injector? I'll double your money!

Yours might be running bad because the first cat is missing and the O2 sensors are upset. Also, it's running on 2 MAFs that are 12years old and from the JY. They calibration drift over time, and are fragile. Bottom line, it has to run better after 2 new cats, O2 sensors, 2 new MAFs, reflash and injector balance at the dealership. Also, the dealership is supposed to give you back a vehicle that runs good enough to pass emissions testing, no pending codes, all monitors clear.

My Central Ohio dealership has pushed my AEM appointment back, and now it's on indefinite hold because (they say) the EGR valve is on intergalactic backorder. What's the name of the dealer near you? I'll call them to see if they have the parts... after yours is done, of course!

That sedan with the OM642 is the exact one that I got my intake tube and alternator from!  How awesome would it have been if you would have had some parts scavenged from the same car on yours!  haha!

I am pretty sure that I didn't screw up the timing and I can't think of anything other hard part that would be causing this type of issue, so I'm with you: it's gotta be a sensor (or lack thereof!) that is tripping up the engine.  I've ordered an OpenPort 2.0 and I'm trying to decide on a Xentry download option to see if I can fiddle with it a bit myself.  I have seen bad sensors on OM642s before where everything starts to run better when you unplug the MAFs.  Apparently when there's no MAF signal, it stops reading a bunch of the sensors and just uses its own tables which tends to smooth things out.  That's the next thing I want to try. 

My appointment is with Mercedes Benz of Ft. Mitchell in (surprise!) Ft. Mitchell, KY.  Despite not really being "my people", and despite the fact that they lost both my car and the key to my car for a rather hilarious extended period of time (documented back in the first few pages of this thread), they've been okay to me.  Their number is 859-331-1500 and they'll schedule you for a time when they have a loaner available.  I have also had good luck with getting parts from their online store.  Good discount off MSRP on OEM parts, but I also don't have to pay shipping since I can just drive over there.

You want an injector?  I'll ship you an injector for $free-fifty.  Just PM me your address and I'll drop it in a flat rate box.  Consider it a sharing of the wealth and a thank you for the technical support!  Let me know what your current injector's code is and if I happen to have one with the same code, I can send that.  Unlikely, but worth a shot, right?  I assume you've got plenty of the Special Ceramic Grease?  If not, I can put a little of that in a baggie along with it - I'll never use this whole jar. 

Oh dear Lord in heaven I hope I never find myself in a situation where I have to use this whole jar....  that would be way more OM642s than I ever hope to work on for the rest of my days....

 

I do have parts off the PnP JY E300 bluetec, and the ML350. Right after you went to PnP, I went over there and got an airfilter & all mounting hardware. One of mine was worked on by a gorilla that didn't know where the mounting bolts were and just tore the plastic filter box off the engine, breaking a mounting bolt ear & one of the plastic studs that drops in the grommet at the bottom, also losing both rubber grommets. I woulda grabbed the batwing air intake tube because mine is broken where it clamps to turbo (See 'worked on by gorilla', above), but somebody had already grabbed it. Kinda glad I didn't get it, because there's a good chance it has a bad MAF. Also grabbed a big handful of random e-torx & hose clamps & relays & fuses & ....

Thanks for the dealer info. I'll check with local dealers again in the next few days. If no joy, I'll see about dropping it off at Ft Mitchell if they have a service loaner for the 2-3 days this takes.

I'll take an injector, though your price is completely unreasonable. I'll send you something in the mail for your trouble. And yes, there is enough white ceramic grease still in this little tub to rebuild 5 more engines.

In reply to FJ40Jim :

I got your email!  I'll get one in the mail to you in the next day or two.  I've got to try to fix my mom's washing machine tonight, but I'll probably be over at the shop tomorrow.

That MAF tube gets replaced anyway, so I guess it's not that big of a deal.  I'm going to try to learn it if I can and see if it gets any better.  But there's so much missing sensor data right now, who knows what's causing it!

Haven't been back to the shop yet, but I'm going over today for certain!

I now have an OpenPort 2.0 and a copy of Xentry.  This could get dangerous.....

As a thank you for getting her washing machine fixed...  *record scratch*

Okay, hold on a second.  I need to take a minute to rant about this. 

Rant posted.  Mood better...  On with the story...

So, anyway, as a thanks for getting her washing machine fixed, my mom and dad took my family and I out to dinner last night.  In retrospect, I have no idea why I didn't think to take a picture, but we all piled in to the Mercedes and took our first outing as a family since September of 2018 in it!  It was kind of funny as we tried to remember how to work the seats and stuff get into the third row.  My wife reached in to one of the door compartments and found a couple hair clip things that she's been looking for.  The kids very much enjoyed the experience and were all saying things like "oh yeah, I remember how nice this was".  I suspect that I'm going to often find that my wife has absconded with it because on the drive she was commenting about how much she liked to drive it as well.

I guess what I'm saying is that the car has told me that it's sorry and it promises it's never going to hurt me again.  And as much as I know I shouldn't believe it, I think I'm falling for it.

It's funny, I know the feeling. Fixing or selling our Rav4 was a 50/50 proposition for me when I noticed the completely rotted rear subframe last summer. And I was seriously considering moving on. What pushed me to fix it was the crazy used car market and me being really cheap and stubborn.

But after having it back for two months now (and putting almost 3k miles on it already), I appreciate having it back more and more each day!

Hope you and your family enjoy having your SUV back in the rotation!

Alright!  Today's the day!  Leaving now to drop off der Scheißwagen.

I'm going to stop at the post office on the way home and get that injector sent, too!

On October 10th, 2018, I had an appointment for der Scheißwagen to be dropped off at the Mercedes dealer because I couldn't figure out what that nasty ticking sound was.  My eldest daughter wanted to ride with me, so off we went.  The ticking noise escalated rapidly on the trip, though, and before we went even a mile, the trip ended like this:

Yesterday, when I saw that she didn't have to work today, I asked her if she wanted to finish the journey that we started 1,379 days ago and she was quite excited to do so.  Before leaving, I went out and hit it with the vacuum and wiped things down a little to make it look a little more loved.  Then I woke her up and off we went!

I got some funny looks when I rolled up making all sorts of ruckus from the exhaust.  And it was echoing through the whole place when they pulled it inside.  But inside it is!  The service advisor told me that he expects that it'll be about a full week before it's ready and I told him no big rush.  In the meantime, I've got this to drive:

Honestly, I'm not particularly impressed.  It's a bit claustrophobic and kind of buzzy.  It's a 2 liter turbo four and it will definitely scoot, but it doesn't really feel or sound how I'd expect a $53,000 car to sound and feel.  I kind of feel like for the money, I'd rather have a Mazda CX-50 and my leftover money.

Anyway.... now we wait.  I told them to go ahead and put the front O2 sensor on because I'm pretty sure that's gone forever at this point, but other than that we'll see if they come up with anything else that they think needs to be fixed.

EDIT:  Ooh, post #666 in this thread.  I hope that's not an omen!

Is that the SUV that was part of some joint deal with Nissan/Infiniti?

In reply to wae :

Damn the GL has nice lines in that 2nd photo.

So glad to see that it's actually getting the AEM love at the dealer. You've come a long way, baby!

IIRC, that includes both cats and all O2 sensors, doesn't it?

Called my preferred local dealer a few days ago. They said they still have an open repair order on my vehicle, with parts ordered, but one part is still intergalactically backordered with no arrival date from the mothership.

Take care of that loaner, because I'll call your dealer when the GL is done and get the same loaner for the same recall on my ML.

eastsideTim said:

Is that the SUV that was part of some joint deal with Nissan/Infiniti?

No, but it did cough up some DNA that trickled down to some Jeep in the DaimlerChrysler era.

eastsideTim said:

Is that the SUV that was part of some joint deal with Nissan/Infiniti?

I don't think so?  I thought their deal was to make the pickup truck.

yupididit said:

In reply to wae :

Damn the GL has nice lines in that 2nd photo.

You're not wrong.  I like the styling on that more than most SUVs and way more than any of the current line-up.

FJ40Jim said:

So glad to see that it's actually getting the AEM love at the dealer. You've come a long way, baby!

IIRC, that includes both cats and all O2 sensors, doesn't it?

Called my preferred local dealer a few days ago. They said they still have an open repair order on my vehicle, with parts ordered, but one part is still intergalactically backordered with no arrival date from the mothership.

Take care of that loaner, because I'll call your dealer when the GL is done and get the same loaner for the same recall on my ML.

As I understand it, the only GLs that get a new O2 sensor are the 07, 08, and/or 09 models, but I'm not sure.  As I read the details of each EMC in the settlement revision that came out earlier this year, I get the SCR (cat) and the DPF, new NOx sensor, new M55 motor, new intake manifolds, new EGR and cooler, new intake tube and MAF sensors, new ECU, and new PCV valve.

I've heard that the hardest part to get right now is the EGR valve, so that might be what they've got you waiting on.  Also, I did get to the post office after dropping off the car, so you should see that injector in a couple days!

Just got the call from the dealer.  The fight begins....  They claim they can't do anything with the car because "parts are missing, sensors are unplugged, and bolts are loose".

So, calling mbusa now...

And this might be more trouble than I expected, considering the guy who has answered the phone at the customer service number that they publish for the whole bluetec update work doesn't know what a DPF is....

Wow.  And MBUSA says that they will do absolutely nothing about this.

The dealer is putting together a list of things that they say have to be done before they'll touch the AEM.  I guess I'm not finished with this after all....