W213 on the floor (malfunction)

[Janchee]

Only 20 days until the warranty starts and the ... decides to malfunction now.

What do you think I should do. I only have one car so might need to get it fixed

Ive never had a car to break down so much

Had a terrible weekend with the little one in hospital and this is the last thing I need

 

[anyweb]

If you've got a warranty then get it fixed, that's what the warranty is for, do it before it expires.

 

[Janchee]

If you've got a warranty then get it fixed, that's what the warranty is for, do it before it expires.

I wish ... 20 days before the warranty starts my man

 

[Wighty]

I wish ... 20 days before the warranty starts my man

Any way you could borrow a car for 3 weeks ? Maybe a family member

 

[ernieh]

I wish ... 20 days before the warranty starts my man

Hopefully you bought from a dealer in which case, take it back to them as they should give you at least 3 months warranty.

Ernie

 

[Janchee]

Any way you could borrow a car for 3 weeks ? Maybe a family member

All family members have one car only. I’ve had to ring it in as it’s undriveable and our only car. Still got tomorrow to get full refund on extended warranty, so will probably do that and sell this. It’s probably going to be perfect for the next owner as I’ve put so many new parts on it

 

[Blobcat]

All family members have one car only. I’ve had to ring it in as it’s undriveable and our only car. Still got tomorrow to get full refund on extended warranty, so will probably do that and sell this. It’s probably going to be perfect for the next owner as I’ve put so many new parts on it

I’d say as you had one warranty and due to COVID and everything else you forgot to renew. Once you realised the warranty had lapsed you renewed and so Mr Mercedes pretty please fix my suspension that shouldn’t have stopped working.

 

[Janchee]

I’d say as you had one warranty and due to COVID and everything else you forgot to renew. Once you realised the warranty had lapsed you renewed and so Mr Mercedes pretty please fix my suspension that shouldn’t have stopped working.

It’s a great idea, but unfortunately it had 3rd party warranty up until the 17th Jan. I didn’t know that the official Mercedes warranty would take 1 month to take place, and therefore it was in no mans land. Car is still stuck at recovery, with a very little chance of getting to dealership until next few days (snow). Hire car company doesn’t have a clue when it can get me a car lol so it’s a good job I wasn’t stuck on the side of a motorway...

 

[Janchee]

Update: the car managed to get to dealership yesterday. The compressor has failed and blown the relay. Mercedes 50% contribution leaves me with 350. Also done a deal with them to fit alarm for 200. Both these things failed within no mans land!

 

[John Laidlaw]

Could have been a lot worse, well done that man....hopefully that's all the gremlins out of the way

 

[Janchee]

Could have been a lot worse, well done that man....hopefully that's all the gremlins out of the way

Just Hoping that there isn’t a leak on the car. They won’t be able to test until new compressor has been fitted. I’ve asked for compressor and alarm back, so I’ll post some photos of a break down in the garage

 

[mattkh]

Just Hoping that there isn’t a leak on the car. They won’t be able to test until new compressor has been fitted. I’ve asked for compressor and alarm back, so I’ll post some photos of a break down in the garage

Glad about the progress.
Wont the dealership keep the old compressor to investigate why it failed prematurely..!

 

[Janchee]

Glad about the progress.
Wont the dealership keep the old compressor to investigate why it failed prematurely..!

Well, I was thinking that, so let's see what they do when I go pick up the car. The fault 'Malfunction' had been popping on and off for the last couple of weeks, and stupid me didn't really take notice of the symbol. So when I handed it into the dealership (couple weeks back), they said yes, that malfunction is the exterior light (door handle LED light). And didn't reply of any stored faults (Air body control). They did, however, report of the Alarm issue so they must have done a check.

However, there are in-fact two malfunction warnings (at least on this model). One for the Air body control, and one for the exterior light. So the Air body control warning light was coming on sometimes, and sometimes not. It would also clear every time I turned the car off.

So the pump, relay and fuse are all blown. Question is: is it because there was a leak and the compressor knackered itself? Or is it because of water ingress? Compressor seems to be in NSF arch ...

As a mech engineer, I'd like to get the pump back and see what's gone wrong with it!

 

[Janchee]

Update: New compressor has been fitted and mechanic had car running for 3 hours, no drop noticed. Dealer didn’t think it was water ingress and in a roundabout way, said the compressors are toffee and blow quite regularly.

Mechanic has to do some manual calibration tomorrow and wants to check it’s not gone down overnight. So should be picking it up tomorrow morning ish.

Also, I’m not allowed the compressor as Mercedes have contributed towards the cost. So the part is going back to Germany! I have asked service man to check it the compressor is a new part number ie Mercedes have updated it and fixed the fault. He will let me know in the morning.

 

[Janchee]

Update: Car is back and feels all good. Dealer said that they have to send the compressor back to Mercedes UK and will most likely go back to Germany for Re-Manufacturing.
The part number removed was different to the one fitted, so Mercedes have made some change due to product faults in the field. I will however, dissect the alarm and see why that’s failed ...

 

[malcolm E53 AMG]

From memory the other S213 air pump failures I’ve read about were due to water ingress (known fault) into the electrics hence the fuse blowing. As the pump itself from MB is probably £400ish I don’t think it turned out too badly for you but you could argue it was another unnecessary cost.

 

[Janchee]

From memory the other S213 air pump failures I’ve read about were due to water ingress (known fault) into the electrics hence the fuse blowing. As the pump itself from MB is probably £400ish I don’t think it turned out too badly for you but you could argue it was another unnecessary cost.

Very true, that’s what I’ve read as well. Mechanic said he could not find any water near connections, so it could’ve been in the compressor itself.

You’re absolutely right that it was another unnecessary cost but, they did contribute towards it (probably because they can refurb it cheap and sell it with new part number on it)

I had a Skoda Octavia 1.5 TSI SE L as a hire car, and I really liked it. The DSG was good and I got an easy 50mpg on journeys. Half tempted to chop the car in for something like this, but the market with diesels atm, I’ll probably lose too much!

 

[joderest]

Note.
I used to own a Landrover Discovery TD5 which had air suspension. Twice during very cold weather, dropped at rear, once i had compressor replaced ( which the workshop did not, but charged me, another story) 2nd time just a fuse.
What i discovered in the end was that the air filter for the compressor was in a void under left hand side rear light, however, the roof also drained into this void, and when it rained, the filter got wet, then when cold it froze, meaning the compressor could not pull air, got hot and blew the fuse.
Simple fix was half a 1 litre plastic milk bottle over the filter, never had an issue after that.


Explanation:::: When it first went down, took it to what i thought was a decent LR garage ( heavy snow and wife needed the car so had no time to do it myself) who stated compressor knackered, and charged me £400 to replace it) a couple of years later, the compressor failed due to the piston ring breaking, but i found another piston ring on e bay, took the compressor out only to find it was the original, not a replacement one. Went back to this garage to have it out with them, but they had closed down, bloke in next shop said they were done by trading standards.

 

[Janchee]

Update: Car has just been recovered as rear left has dropped now. I heard the compressor kick in earlier, then as soon as I got out the car I saw it go down.

Thank god it’s under warranty now! :O

 

[malcolm E53 AMG]

Sorry to hear this you‘re certainly suffering some bad luck with this car, as you say the money spent on extending the warranty is really worth while especially if you are doing the miles