E320 Estate - water leak in rear

[ArtistsRifles]

Whilst loading up the estate ready for a trip down to France last week I found, under some loose waterproofs, a patch of fungus growing. Further exploration revealed the whole O/S of the load bed was soaking as were the fold up rear seat back and the foot well of the foldup rear seat. The water extracted ths far doesn't look - or smell - like the fluid from the rear screen washer although whilst out there drips were observed coming from the light fitting in the O/S rear pillar - which is the one the screen wash pipe runs up....
The amount of water in the back, though would seem to indicate a far more serious problem than a minor leak from the washer pipe.

Has any one out there come across this before???

Only taking this little bomb-shell in conjuction with the awful instability of the car whilst towing a caravan I'm seriously considering parting company with it!!!!

Neil.

 

[Parrot of Doom]

IIRC there was a recent post about water getting in through a seal in the fuel filler cap - check in there.

 

[Sprint'n'Go]

Only taking this little bomb-shell in conjuction with the awful instability of the car whilst towing a caravan I'm seriously considering parting company with it!!!!

Neil.

I would have expected a car of that size to be an excellent tow vehicle although I have had little experience of towing myself.

Have you done anything to improve the stability?

1st call must be tyre pressures, if you haven't checked them for a while they could be as low as 15-20 psi and still look ok. Read your owners handbook and you will probably find that pressure recomendations go up for towing and could be as high as 36-38psi for the rear tyres. This cropped up last year when we were towing a competition motor to scotland and were having a terrible time with the handling. This was using a Discovery to tow a Jimny on a trailer. When we checked the tyres we did indeed find one of the rears a bit low (I think landrover recomend upto 48psi in the rears when towing!) and once sorted the set up was then very stable at any speed.

Most caravaners also swear by stabilisers and I think twin stabilisers are becoming popular now with bigger outfits.

Lastly, are all the suspension bushes in good shape on the 'E' and also ensure all towbar bolts are tight.

 

[Blobcat]

I would have expected a car of that size to be an excellent tow vehicle although I have had little experience of towing myself.

Have you done anything to improve the stability?

1st call must be tyre pressures, if you haven't checked them for a while they could be as low as 15-20 psi and still look ok. Read your owners handbook and you will probably find that pressure recomendations go up for towing and could be as high as 36-38psi for the rear tyres. This cropped up last year when we were towing a competition motor to scotland and were having a terrible time with the handling. This was using a Discovery to tow a Jimny on a trailer. When we checked the tyres we did indeed find one of the rears a bit low (I think landrover recomend upto 48psi in the rears when towing!) and once sorted the set up was then very stable at any speed.

Most caravaners also swear by stabilisers and I think twin stabilisers are becoming popular now with bigger outfits.

Lastly, are all the suspension bushes in good shape on the 'E' and also ensure all towbar bolts are tight.

I agree with Sprint that the 'E' makes an excellent tow car. I would check the whole setup and weights/loading before blaming the car. MB recommend that you tow with the Max permitted nose weight. There are so many variables with towing that slight changes can make a very large difference.

Sprint - as for towing with a Disco, if it was a very old one, they could be really bad. The towbars were connected such that the whole back of the vehicle swayed around. Later ones much better, we have a Disco TD5 van which is excellent for towing.

 

[ArtistsRifles]

Yep - tyre pressures are set to the ones specified on the label inside the filler flap - I think it was 46 for the rears and 35 for the front. MB's recommended noseweight is 75 Kg, the van weighs in at 1450 Kg so using the 7% guideline we should be running the van at 100 Kg. Lowest I can get it without compromising the vans stability is 85 Kg. Towbar is the Oris detachable with 13 pin socket Only thing left to verify are the bushes in the suspension - and that, I think will be a job for a dealer :-( Better start saving I guess. Mind you it needs to go to them to have the split charge relays etc fitted for the van - right now the 13 pin is only wired for the lights.....

 

[John Turner]

I suggest that you check for water leaks from your side rear windows. The water can squeeze between glass and rubber seal, run along rubber seal, wick through carpeting on side panel and into the fold down seat recess in rear. Open the side panels and feel along the rubber strip between rubber and metal. If it is leaking you will probably find corrosion bubbles in the inner metal skin.
Alternatively, if you have a tow bar, they often seem to fit the tow bar cable from the rear lights through a hole under the carpeting in the fold down seat recess. The cable should be protected from the edges of the hole by a grommit, but if this has decayed, you may get a water leak from below (due to spray, washing).
Good luck
John

 

[ArtistsRifles]

Put the car into Lakeside Mercedes - part of the Lancaster group - to be checked over and I don't know whether to be dismayed or impressed!!!

For starter they had to have it two days because "none of the parts were in stock so they had no idea of the prices".... Weird because when I go to a SAAB dealers for mine they just pull up the part diagram on a computer, select the parts needed and it prints out the price plus availability!!

When we finally picked it up:
* we were told "the labour charge is £99/hour and we spent 10 hours - so you're bill is £58.00"... but happy it wasn't the £990 normal, non-Mercedes Dealer maths would say it should have been!!
* The mechanic gave us a good break down of what had been found - then pointed out there were a lot of independent specialists out there who could do the work at a fraction of the cost (est. invoice was £918!!)

According to them we have:
A leaking diff
Worn diff bushes and stabilizer bars
Water leak from tailgate seal (small) and rear light cluster (large)
Problem with centre pin on the 13 pin towing socket and a towbar wiring loom that "looked like spaghetti" - interesting as it was factory fitted!!!

So - at least we know where to start on the repairs. Any one recommend a good independent around the Dagenham are? Otherwise we've been using BPW Moors - a German marque specialist in Seven Kings.

 

[OlafMaxwell]

I have found the tyre pressures are critical. I run 38psi front and rear and get anything up to 40k from tyres, mostly though its about 30k. Making sure they are equal is also very important. However there have been problems with the rear self levelling suspension which would affect stability.

 

[ArtistsRifles]

So - put the car into the local independent guys workshop to have the towing electrics sorted first - thinking this would be a quick easy job.

WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!

Seems whatever monkey of a dealer put the towbar on new:
1) Used sub-standard wiring (as in too small a dia) - esp for the 35A earth connecions. Had it all been connected properly we would, at best have had molten wiring, at worst a nice fire in the region of the fuel tank.
2) Taken what should have been the 12v switched feed straight from the battery.
3) Not even bothered fitting the split charge relay - the wires went into the fuse box and relay housing - and were just left there, loose.

Independent guy tried to get info from Mercedes as to what relay should have been fitted as part of the OEM towing wiring - and they wouldn't tell him. Upshot was, after he'd had to strip out the carpeting, dash and fuse box to trace the wirig and replace with the correct guage stuff we got hit with a bill for

£350​

And we haven't even TOUCHED the business about the water leak and the knackered rear suspension bushes!!

Trust me when I say I'm not laughing about this and that p/exing the E320 for another 4x4 is looking increasingly attractive