Possible starter motor solenoid problem on my sprinter van

Ironside

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 24, 2006
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Location
Brixham UK
Website
www.tetraplegicliving.com
I've had this problem now for the last year or so. It started out being very intermittent, the Mercedes garage couldn't find out what was wrong because whenever they have the van, it would not occur. However, in the last few days it just got worse and worse. I took a little video this morning to show you what is happening. The click is when I turned the key to start the engine. The whirring just continues after. I am going to take it over to a garage in the next couple of days and see if they can find out what is wrong. In the meantime, if anyone has any ideas, then please feel free to chime in.

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ARTEK

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Joined
May 2, 2011
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Location
Glastonbury, CT
Your Mercedes
2002 Sprinter
Sprinter Starter issues

I have a 2002 MB/Freightliner Sprinter. I've had it since 2007 with nominal probs, recently I had a starter motor issue. I went to start it and during the cranking it seemed like the battery was dimenishing. This this was drawing a huge amount of current. Not sure but maybe the solenoid partially engaged messing up the metal strip welded to the flywheel. I took it to Freightliner for service. The replaced the starter, and pulled the transmission to replace the flywheel. $2000.00 I brought it home. 11 hrs of labor, starter & flywheel.
Next day go to start it. It clicked but no crank. Brought it back, they replaced the starter. No charge, few days later, go to start, same thing, this is now the 3rd time I will be taking it back. I looked at how the battery connection was made. Negative has short length of wire to bond to firewall, grounding the body. Down at the Motor mount there is another short length of braided bare copper wire bonding to the body. Now my Sprinter is starting to rust, but I found no oxidation at these connections. I sanded them down to clean it since I had it apart. But all checks out. I'm reading 12.83 volts on solenoid when I turn the key. The replacement starters I cannot really see well enough if it is a OEM product. But there is definitly got to be some manufacturer detects! I'll update with this post/reply as I get my Sprinter back. I would love to know if other Sprinter owners have encountered this.
My Sprinter has just 132K Miles on it.
 


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