CLS 320D NO POWER

[tomprett]

Hi all
The other day I was traveling along a motorway when I realised I had no turbo power. I had to reduce speed to pass a toll plaza and it took ages to get back up to speed gearing up at low revs, iif I accelerate it would not kick down and engine didn't rev, but once up to speed it was ok. I stopped at a services and when I came back to the car and resumed the trip all was back to normal. This happened some months ago and after a restart the problem went away.

I got no engine management light or fault codes so nothing there to investigate I suppose as it unlikely it has stored faults.
I would appreciate any guidance or pointers in what way to go. I home service the car myself and the red turbo oil seals seem ok but I will renew these shortly just in case these may be attributing to the problem.

Thanks in advance
Tom

 

[Mr Filipov]

Without fault codes it is just a wild goose chase. It could be a number of things which could be quite expensive. If it happened only once and never again since I would not worry about it. Best way to figure out is if it happens get to a garage with STAR while the car is in limp mode else it might not store any codes again. The usual culprits for this tend to be turbo actuator or inlet shutoff motor, but like I said wild goose chase if you have no codes.

 

[tomprett]

Mr Filipov, thank you for responding.

I do agree with your thoughts, I suppose I was looking to see will it break down and leave me stranded fingers crossed it won't. I have never experienced limp mode not exactly sure what happens in that mode.

 

[EmilysDad]

My R320 has done similar,
Is this any use?

 

[Mr Filipov]

Mr Filipov, thank you for responding.

I do agree with your thoughts, I suppose I was looking to see will it break down and leave me stranded fingers crossed it won't. I have never experienced limp mode not exactly sure what happens in that mode.

It should not brake down completely. It will go into limp mode but that may clear woth a restard of the engine. My previous car (CLS320 CDI) had the actuator fail on it, but as I could never get it down the garage with the car in limp mode I got told based on codes it could be actuator or swirl flap motor. I took a gamble and lost (around £500 mark to be exact), where the actuator getting re-conned was about half the price.
Of course those are just the two main causes for this, however it could be a number of other things which are not as common. For the amount of electronics on these cars it is not worth a gamble.

 

[EireJames]

When my swirl motor packed up I had the engine management light and another light also that pointed to the swirl motor or the actuator.

Mine isn't a Merc though even though it's OM642 powered but surely if were either the swirl motor or the actuator the EML would be on?

 

[concordepilot19]

I had the same symptoms on my CLS 320 CDi, limp mode meant there was very little power and it would select 7th at about 40 mph. No yellow light until the Mobilo Life man revved it in neutral. Turned out to be inlet port shut off motor. Apparently it happens to many of these V6's , annoyingly.

 

[Mr Filipov]

I had the same symptoms on my CLS 320 CDi, limp mode meant there was very little power and it would select 7th at about 40 mph. No yellow light until the Mobilo Life man revved it in neutral. Turned out to be inlet port shut off motor. Apparently it happens to many of these V6's , annoyingly.

Yes it is annoying, and yes it is common. Unfortunately it is partially design flaw and partially owner being unaware. If you change the turbo seal every second service/2 years this will prevent it in the first place. Chances are the first and even second owner are none the wiser and not bothered as it is still a fairly new car. It is the owners after that, that have to pick up the bill for that.

 

[Steve@Avantgarde]

Dont guess at anything, get the fault codes read first.