ECO problem - not working

[BillyBoy]

Anyone had any faults with their ECO mode? This worked fine when I first bought the car (from new) in July, but over the past few months has gotten worse to the point it is practically useless.

At first I attributed the behaviour to the colder weather as we entered Autumn (the handbook states it won't operate if the outside temperature is "too low", though doesn't say what too low is), but a work college has a new C-class it it works fine in all weathers!!!

The symptoms are that it hardly ever turns green now. I travel around 35 miles to work each day, mostly motorway and back roads with hardly any stopping, however the ECO symbol in the display stays yellow the whole time most days. on the odd day when it does go green at some point, this is normally short lived (10 - 15 minutes) before it goes yellow again.

When the indicator is green, the system works absolutely fine, and cuts the engine off and restarts perfectly.

It went into the dealers last week, and they applied some software updates and "recallibrated everything", and the last few days it has at least come on on most journeys, but still goes yellow again after a while. It also seems more prone to turning green when starting on a warm or hot engine that from cold overnight.

It's going back in the garage, but just wondered if anyone else has experienced similar problems, and if so, what the solution was?

TIA,
Bill

P.S. happy New Year to one and all!!!!!

 

[television]

Cant help on your question,,,, my 230 only lights up all red saying stop the car

 

[zeeshh]

Though I've replied the same in other thread about same question by Billyboy, but pasting here as well.

I've driven the C class 11 & 12 plate, as courtesy cars while E class was with the dealer for service/repair etc. The ECO start / stop worked absolutely fine all the time. ECO indicator starts with Yellow in the morning and soon after 4-5 miles run turns into green and for all rest of the day/night works fine. not a single failure.

However, just day before yesterday (Monday noon) I upgraded mine to E250 11 number plate (approved used) which does have ECO but since the cluster is not colored so it remains black& white.

I'm experiencing exactly the same issue as Billyboy and keep on convincing myself that may be it's hot these days and insdie / outside temp is different and most of the time air conditioining needs to be ON , so that's why ECO is not coming into action. OR, may be since this car must be in MB forecourt for few weeks so battery is still not charged up to the mark and I didn't have long runs in the last 2 days.

But I think it's not only me, but I would like to give it few more days before calling Dealer, so I can pick up any other thing to be checked as well. So keep us posted Billyboy and may be will talk to Dealer over the weekend. Here's my experience:

- ECO sign comes on after few minutes of start in the morning.
- Remain ON for another 5 min, few miles, during which if I stop it works absolutely fine.
- then ECO sign goes off and never come back, only once I saw after 30-40 miles, it worked and then went away.

cheers....

 

[zeeshh]

Hi Billyboy, has your ECO issue resolved? let me know how.
cheers...

 

[BillyBoy]

Hi Zeeshh, no i thasn't been resolved! I did keep a log through March of the behaviour and took the car in to the dealer in April. they looked at the log and agreed it did look odd. The general pattern was on after 5 - 10 minutes in the morning, then off at some point in the journey (erratic, but normally around the 20 - 30 minute point) and stayed off. In the evening, it was normally on within 5 minutes and then on all the way home (abour 35 miles / 1 hour)

They had the car in for two days and gave it a thorough check but could find no fault. Interestingly though, they gave me a 12 plate C220 cdi estate while mmine was in, and it behaved pretty much the same as mine! Going home was fine after I picked it up, but the first morning the ECO mode didn't engage at all, and the second morning it behaved pretty much as described above.

With the warmer weather recently, it has been behaving better again and most mornings comes on within 5 minutes and stays on. The other morning it was on within 30 seconds!! (Interesting to note that on that day the outside temperature was reading 18C which is the same as I have my climate set to!

The guy in the dealership was very good, and even gave me a print out of the MB diagnostic pages on how to check the system, but while it give a good overview of how it works, it doesn't help that much without a STAR machine to check the values.

The thing that annoys me most is that it seems so inconsistent! The handbook and diagnostics list the parameter values that go into calculating the when the ECO mode should engage, and logically, I can't see why any of them should be false at some of the points it turns off unless their is a fault providing an incorrect value. The most likely candidates I can see are either the sensor cluster in the rear view mirror, or some interior/exterior temperature related issue, but difficult to prove.

Cheers,

Bill

 

[zeeshh]

Thanks Bill for the update and I have the same issue. Although I had this car for only 6 days and out of 5 mornings the ECO sign came up only 3 times after 2 min of starting which stayed there for 3-4 minutes and during which I did stopped and it worked fine. Then after 3-4 min it disappeared and never showed up for the rest of the day. For the rest of the 3 days the ECO symbol did not turp up at all. (mine is black&white display so ECO shown or not shown, not like in the colored display where ECO is yellow and green).

I haven't booked it to service centre yet and was waiting for your reply, will do after the holidays. But I agree with you that there is something wrong with the system calculations becuase in last 6 days weather was quite changing so I've used the car keeping climate controlle at 22 C all the time and outside temp was changing from 7 C to 27 C, morning, day, night. The ECO is behaving the same as I described earlier.

Did MB service centre mentioned any thing on software updates, if not then I have strong doubts on battery. Is the small battery in the boot is for this ECO start/stop function?

cheers...

 

[zeeshh]

Update:
for the last 36 hrs ECO start/stop is working 99% of the time, even within the city and on M4 ECO sign is there all the time.

I have no idea what happened but I didn't call MB for the diagnostic today and will see for few days.
cheers...

 

[azurite180]

B Class Stop Start

Yes I have had similar problems with my new B Class. Sometimes works and sometimes does not. I can find no clear pattern to this but garage say something to do with battery being loaded if air con, heater etc on so not enough power for start motor. ? bigger battery needed. Assure me this is the way it is meant to be! Progress!

 

[zeeshh]

My issue resolved on its own though I had the same feedback form service centre and from user manual. However, here's what I did and you can give it a try.

keep your climate control to auto with A/C on (no sure if it's the same like E class) and set it to one temp value (e.g. 21 C) and keep on driving for few days and don't deactivate the ECO manually. By doing this if there are so many sensors or parameters which collectively determine the On/Off function will get synchronised or get adapted to some threshhold value (setteled down).

I also did one thing 2-3 times that every day I used to turn the engine off manually at some signal and wait until green light and then start again manually (aprox. 5-30 sec interval). so after 3rd day the ECO sign appeared on the instrument clusted and it's so far the ECO functionality working 100%.

Hope this help. Mine is 1 year old, with 13k on the clock and neither main nor the ECO related battery (in the boot) is changed.
cheers....

 

[azurite180]

Thanks zeeshh for your ideas.

I do such a small mileage probably doesn't make much difference to my petrol consumption whether or not the ECO is working. Maybe like others it will settle down in time.

 

[Wingco1979]

ECO stop/start

Had my 13 plate C220 CDI for 2 months now and had no trouble with the stop start system initially. The indicator would turn green after about a minute of driving. I commute about 30 miles a day. Recently I had a couple of weeks off work and didn't drive any distance in the car except around time. Towards the end of the two weeks I noticed the ECO light taking longer and longer to come on and eventually stay yellow for all the short journies I was doing. All the conditions of the system were being met.
It wasn't until I returned to work and started commuting again that the ECO system returned to 'normal'. It took 3 - 4 days to sort itself out. Reading other posts it seems it may have something to do with the DPF. It's obviously not a fan of the short journey.

 

[cyking91]

Hi All,
My recent experience with ECO is as follows:
Besides conditions such as temperature and road, this is another thing that you could check-- timing chain. Sometimes if the timing chain is off, then your ECO will be de-activated and to a certain point, the ECO will not light up (not even yellow nor green). Your ECO green light should appear after you start driving within the first 30 mins. If you dont see the green light, then it is advised that you switch your focus to the engine. Since the temporary shutdown (ECO enabled) has to do with the engine, this is probably something you should pay attention to as well.

Thanks,

 

[Scoob]

Not sure if this helps but...

Every time my car has been into the garage for something, my next Journey always sees the ECO staying Orange for an extended period, rather than green. Additionally, my idle RPM is also a lot lower, but still smooth. This goes away after a little driving. POssibly a symptom of popping the battery off?

I wonder, if a "DPF Purge" is occuring that would surely temporarily make ECO unavailable wouldn't you think? Additionally, things like the battery being a little low (but not "bad") would trigger the car to not risk a stop/start of the engine to presure said charge until a long enough run has topped it up?

Basically, I've been told that many many variables determine if ECO activates or not.

One final thing. It's been so hot of late that I often turn ECO off, as the Air Con pump stops when the engine does. This is fine if the cabin is already pleasantly chilled, not so much if it's still cooling down.

Scoob.

 

[Carabosse]

The very first thing I do after turning on the engine is to switch ECO off.

Works like a dream!

 

[Scoob]

The very first thing I do after turning on the engine is to switch ECO off.

Works like a dream!

Lol, exactly what I did initially, but I thought I should give it a try rather than default to hating it. Generally it doesn't bug me too much now, but I'll NOT have it turn off my air-con when I need it!

You know, there is something really sureal when you're driving with the windows down, come to a halt, and the car is silent... Guess it's preparing me for that electric vehicle I'll have one day...

Scoob.

 

[Steve Webber]

I believe I may have the answer to this anomaly. I too suffered the same problems regarding my engine not cutting out when coming to a stop. My eco light was permanently orange regardless of how hot the engine was or if the air con was on, off or somewhere in between. The answer was surprisingly simple and easy to cure. Since sorting it out, touch wood the problem hasn’t returned. The great thing is that it is relatively cheap to cure. I noticed that the battery wasn’t giving enough amperage. For the sake of £140 a new battery sorted out all the eco woes the car had. Now it runs sweet and my orange eco light now turns green very quickly after turning the key.

I hope that this knowledge now goes on to help all you people with similar problems....

 

[alex cnwell]

I only noticed the difference after having a new battery fitted,before it was very rarely green but now green after a few miles and stays green.

 

[such]

My battery was changed today and eco instantly green. Not been working for at least a couple of months prior.

 

[Marcus Romer]

My W204 2012 had the same issue. Echo yellow permanently, now with a new battery Echo turns green after a minute or two. However, when I stop at the traffic lights the engine goes off, but then religiously it restarts on its own offer 20 seconds!

Would there be any chance the start stop battery relay be the issue?

 

[ajlsl600]

Heard somewhere on this that can be DPF related give it a 65 mph run for about the same miles see if it resolves issue.