2012 C350 CDI Sport Estate - gearbox rattle

[st4]

If its an injector issue, and the car runs ok and there is no leaking diesel, I'd leave well alone

 

[Scoob]

Hi st4,

You mean getting them changed / software update can be more trouble? I just want my car to run nice (as it does generally) but without that annoying rattling noise under acceleration. Likely it wouldn't bug some, but it really bothers me.

Car is back in at MB Tuesday next week for further investigation into this, so we'll see what they say. In the interim, maybe I'll make a point of driving a little harder in case the DPF is in a purge at the moment - i.e. give it a chance to clean its self, or whatever it does. I've a long-ish drive tomorrow, so I have options.

Cheers,

Scoob.

 

[Scoob]

Hi all,

Final update for this one most likely:

The rattle:

While I can certainly hear a (now slightly more muted) rattle under the previously described conditions, MB say they cannot hear any noises they'd deem "worrying" at all. This is after having a 2nd (senior) Tech with me in the car. I'm aware of the noise when driving and as a passenger, but, if others can barely hear it I'm going to stop worrying.

Basically, I'm going to keep monitoring things, if it gets worse, it goes back in for a few days. They've already checked various heat shields etc. and even found one slightly loose - which changed the characteristics of the sound slightly - so after several hours of work with nothing untoward being found, I'm going to leave it.

The Parking brake issue:

Intersting this, my friend on his E350 CDI Sport Coupe had the exact same initial "clatter" mine did, as well as his parking brake not holding the car at all. He recently had the exact same fix - something to do with the brake shackles - done. Like with me, this fixed his "clatter" over bumps, but now he gets the exact same rubbing noise when the Parking brake has been applied for an extended period - i.e. over night.

So, two different cars, same initial faults, same fix by same garage and same new symptoms. We both notice that using the parking brake for a short amount of time doesn't give the rubbing noise when moving off again.

Interesting re: parking brake. Several people at the dealership say that they naver use it - sorta not the point, we both DO use it and used to get the same excessive roll too (i.e. parking brake did not actually engage) though now it works fine with firm application. Basically "park" alone is not enough, you need the Parking Brake enagaged when on a slope to avoid excessive roll.

The worrying thing we both observed re: the parking brake was the huge amount of roll we got as just Park was engaged in effect. I.e. park near a wall / another car / whatever and you would roll towards it. Now with a WORKING parking brake, there's only a very minor bit of movement as the shoes take up the slack.

Cheers,

Scoob.