erratic running 230te

[Simon Wigley]

Got myself a 1987 230te auto, 107,000 miles on the clock with loads of service history about 2 weeks ago. When the car has warmed up & I accelarate hard or when the car reaches about 60mph it starts to loose revs & seems to struggle like there is some soert of fuel starvation happening. Leafing through the many invoices that came with the car it seems the previous owner has been throwing parts at this problem over the last 12 months before I got hold of the car. He had recently replaced the fuel pump, fuel pump relay and there's also another invoice for a further relay. I've just had the car tuned & replaced the HT leads as they were very old and one was broken & have ordered a new fuel filter as the existing one is dated June 1993!
Anyone got any further advice for me or should I be taking the car to a specialist if the filter doesn't fix the problem??

 

[TheJim]

Fuel filter is a good place to start, as is the air filter.
Worth checking the ignition timing, that could be causing grief. They might not have checked this when it was tuned.
One other culprit could be the inlet manifold gasket.

 

[Ade - I'm back]

Simon

Not familiar with the the 123 series so don't really know whether they had catalytic converters fitted, however I had all the symptoms you mention on my 1991 model and went through all the same remedies. Turned out the cat was on it's way out. Don't know whether this helps.

Ade

 

[Ade - I'm back]

PS check out posts made by me under 'Ade'

 

[Simon Wigley]

Jim/Ade,

Thanks for your thoughts: Ignition timing is spot on as i've only just had it done & other than when the problem occurs it drives & idles lovely. I've checked the exhaust: it seems my W124 is without Cat converter - I seem to have a fairly new Stainless exhauust & there are no sensors on it. I'll let you know whe at it's like when I've changed the fuel filter: Went to the local dealer with the old one, but they don't carry them in stock - I've got to wait until after the holiday period for it!..........How frustrating!!!!!:

 

[Simon Wigley]

Happy to report that I replaced the fuel filter this morning & the car now drives perfectly.