Hi all
I’ve owned a 2011 Merc CLS350 CDi for 12 months and its been one of the best cars I’ve owned.
The cars done 78k miles (58k when I bought it a year ago) and it has full Merv service history with the last service carried out by a the dealer in July this year.
Over the past week the cars been behaving strangely with a couple of intermittent issues, one I can live with but the other more serious.
The first issue is occasional rough staring from cold - I always wait until the glow plug light goes out, but about 1 in 10 times it seems to struggle and turns the engine over 5 or 6 times before starting.
The second issue is more serious as its gearbox related ...... Initially the car drives fine, but gradually the gear changes seem to become a little less smooth and after a number of miles (10 yesterday) the car will hold each gear change until 3,000 RPM and downshift abruptly. When this occurs the car won’t exceed 3,000rpm and flooring the accelerator results in very little happening so I assume it’s in limp mode.
No engine check lights or messages are shown on the dash with either issue.
I took it to a local specialist for them to diagnose the issue they were very surprised that there were absolutely no error codes stored in the car - they commented that this was very unusual as normally there would be some historical codes.
When the car was with them they test drove it for about 5 miles and didn’t experience any issues - they flashed the gearbox with new software just in case.
Yesterday I drove the car for 10 miles and the gearbox issue occurred again but this time the engine check light was on - this was good news as I thought that this would help them diagnose the issue.
However, after stopping for a break and setting off again the engine check light had gone out and the car was driving almost normally (gear changes still not as smooth as before) so I’m not sure if any codes will be stored for them to check
Has anyone experienced a car thats not saving fault codes and/experienced similar gearbox issues?
Many thanks
I’ve owned a 2011 Merc CLS350 CDi for 12 months and its been one of the best cars I’ve owned.
The cars done 78k miles (58k when I bought it a year ago) and it has full Merv service history with the last service carried out by a the dealer in July this year.
Over the past week the cars been behaving strangely with a couple of intermittent issues, one I can live with but the other more serious.
The first issue is occasional rough staring from cold - I always wait until the glow plug light goes out, but about 1 in 10 times it seems to struggle and turns the engine over 5 or 6 times before starting.
The second issue is more serious as its gearbox related ...... Initially the car drives fine, but gradually the gear changes seem to become a little less smooth and after a number of miles (10 yesterday) the car will hold each gear change until 3,000 RPM and downshift abruptly. When this occurs the car won’t exceed 3,000rpm and flooring the accelerator results in very little happening so I assume it’s in limp mode.
No engine check lights or messages are shown on the dash with either issue.
I took it to a local specialist for them to diagnose the issue they were very surprised that there were absolutely no error codes stored in the car - they commented that this was very unusual as normally there would be some historical codes.
When the car was with them they test drove it for about 5 miles and didn’t experience any issues - they flashed the gearbox with new software just in case.
Yesterday I drove the car for 10 miles and the gearbox issue occurred again but this time the engine check light was on - this was good news as I thought that this would help them diagnose the issue.
However, after stopping for a break and setting off again the engine check light had gone out and the car was driving almost normally (gear changes still not as smooth as before) so I’m not sure if any codes will be stored for them to check
Has anyone experienced a car thats not saving fault codes and/experienced similar gearbox issues?
Many thanks