Ask a Shiter

[Tamworthbay]

Has anyone on here had a Mercedes W202 c200 of around 1995 vintage?

If so, give a review if you wouldn't mind.

Seen one for sale that's quite taken my fancy.

It's an auto naturally, so was this in the days before the problematic solenoid plate autobox?

Ta in advance.

I had an auto, slow as fuck, Rusty as fuck but a lovely old barge none the less. Suspension killed it in the end as they use a lot of bushes which I think must be made by gold clad Tibetan virgins judging by the prices Merc were asking. Iirc a full set of bushes was about £300 a side or something stupid and they are a bastard to fit. I also had a snapped injector, but that was more down to the dickhead who had it before me than the car itself.

[jon.k]

I’ve wired in a usb charger/cig lighter/voltmeter/switch panel to my van and it’s running off an old mobility scooter battery.

 

The battery also runs led lights in the van with no problem, and it fires up the voltmeter and the cigarette lighter. I ran a little compressor off the cigarette lighter to check. It won’t make any usb chargers work though, and the light on the socket doesn’t come on at all.

 

Would the USB port sockets take more power just to illuminate the light that shows they’re getting power?

The battery is old and well past it’s best, but seems to do everything else ok.

[Guest Hooli]

Can a slightly soft tyres trigger a false warning re: ABS, TC & ESP faults? Did my weekly tyre pressure check earlier this week using a different airline from the one I normally go to, and since then the ABS etc on the Saab warnings have buggered off, whereas using my 'regular' inflator they stayed on.

 

Just makes you think if petrol station tyre inflators aren't particularly great. I used the calibrated one at work in the workshop instead this week

 

I'd assume so. Enough of a difference in rolling radius between two wheels could cause a fault condition as it thinks one wheel is running slow. I've never seen it happen though so I might be talking crap.

[wuvvum]

Have you had the plugs out? My old sigma refused to start one morning after running fine. A quick check showed almost 2mm gap on the plugs..

I haven't, as they're smoll plugs and I've broken my smoll plug spanner.  If it was plugs though, would that not also have prevented it firing up on Easystart?

[Guest Hooli]

I suspect easystart burns easier, hence helps engines start. So won't need such a good spark.

[wuvvum]

I can certainly have a crack at the plugs - they don't look in the first flush of youth from the bits that I can see.  I just think it's odd that the car would go from being on the button and running perfectly well, to not even trying to start, with nothing in between.  I wouldn't have expected all six plugs to let go at the same time with no warning.

[Guest Hooli]

No it doesn't sound like plugs to me either tbh.

[wuvvum]

I'll clutch at any straw at the moment tbh.  I've been Googling the symptoms and the most common diagnosis is that the ECU has shat itself.  If that's happened then the car is scrap, sadly, as with all the other issues it has it's just not worth spending large amounts of money on.

[wuvvum]

OK, next question.  When I tested the injectors for power, I ran the multimeter from the positive to the earth wires on the connector plug.  This gave me a steady reading of about 8.5v.  However I've been watching some YouTube diagnostic type vids, and it looks like the earth wire is normally switched by the ECU to tell the injector to pulse - in other words, the circuit should only be complete when the injector is firing, so I shouldn't have got a reading on the multimeter when the engine wasn't being cranked.

 

Is that another pointer towards a failed ECU, or have I completely missed the point?

[garethj]

I'm not sure you can tell a lot from injectors with just a multimeter, the last time I messed about with this stuff I borrowed an oscilloscope from work because they switch a bit fast.

 

Have you tried taking the injectors out?  It's something they say to do when you check the spray pattern but you can cunningly see if there's any fuel at all coming through.

[wuvvum]

Haven't had the injectors out yet - the idea scares me slightly...

 

Agree that there's no way a multimeter will react quickly enough to detect injector pulses.  One of the videos I watched had the mechanic testing for injector pulse with a test light - given that they only fire every second revolution, when the engine is being cranked over on the starter the pulses are far enough apart to be picked up by the light.  I haven't seen my test light for years, so I will go out and purchase one.

[DodgeRover]

I can certainly have a crack at the plugs - they don't look in the first flush of youth from the bits that I can see. I just think it's odd that the car would go from being on the button and running perfectly well, to not even trying to start, with nothing in between. I wouldn't have expected all six plugs to let go at the same time with no warning.

That's exactly what the sigma did though.

 

Does the Buick have a distributor cap to dry out and spray with moisture repellent?

[wuvvum]

Nope, it's coil packs.  Bloody moderns...

[SiC]

Fire probably/possibly. I frequently see them around here as fire chiefs or whatever they are/do with FIRE written on them.

[spike60]

Is there any way to insure a car for a couple weeks that doesn't cost a fortune? Esure want £200 to insure a 530d until the end of the month while I see if it sells. Given it's a spares or repair and the now swapped policy was £300 for a year they can FRO. It's still tested and drivable so being insured helps demo it. 

[Guest Hooli]

Insure for the year & then cancel within the 14 days cooling off period?

[Guest Hooli]

No glow plugs = no heat in cylinder = poor combustion. So yeah, makes sense to me.

[Christine]

If i disconnect the battery on my 52 Honda  HRV  .. will the EML be cancelled ?

 

I pulled a connector off of the engine whilst it was running ,and it faltered, so I quickly pushed it back on..Now the EML is on.    It's been on for a week ,I was hoping it would just forget.....

 

Funnily enough though , the car goes much better and pulls like a train at low revs  !! It's a V-tec , and normally it only picks up its skirts at 3000rpm onwards 

[The Moog]

Is there any way to insure a car for a couple weeks that doesn't cost a fortune? Esure want £200 to insure a 530d until the end of the month while I see if it sells. Given it's a spares or repair and the now swapped policy was £300 for a year they can FRO. It's still tested and drivable so being insured helps demo it.

Yes

 

Insure with admiral or elephant. Pay upfront and then cancel within 2 week cooling off period. Total cost for two weeks £25.

 

Done it a few times.

 

Normally use credit card as it is refunded before bill is due.

[Guest Hooli]

Yes, but hopefully it hasn't been stored in the ECU as an error - I can't see it doing that if it can't see the fault, unless the unplugging damaged the sensor somehow.

 

Unplugging it would register a fault as it couldn't see the sensor.

 

Get a cheap dongle & clear the code, I think mine was under a fiver & uses a free app on my phone.

[Christine]

Unplugging it would register a fault as it couldn't see the sensor.

 

Get a cheap dongle & clear the code, I think mine was under a fiver & uses a free app on my phone.

 

Not on my phone it wont  

 

[rainagain]

I’ve wired in a usb charger/cig lighter/voltmeter/switch panel to my van and it’s running off an old mobility scooter battery.

 

The battery also runs led lights in the van with no problem, and it fires up the voltmeter and the cigarette lighter. I ran a little compressor off the cigarette lighter to check. It won’t make any usb chargers work though, and the light on the socket doesn’t come on at all.

 

Would the USB port sockets take more power just to illuminate the light that shows they’re getting power?

The battery is old and well past it’s best, but seems to do everything else ok.

 

I would expect the compressor to put far more load on the battery than the USB outlets. I wonder if they have some sort of auto shut off to stop them flattening your battery and the voltage of the resting scooter battery is too low?

 

i.e. they only work when the battery is being charged ~14V rather than resting ~12.7V. Try hooking up a car charger to the scooter battery and see if they start working. I had a similar problem with a 12V fridge that would happily run off a battery connected to a charger but about ten minutes after removing the charger it would auto shut off. 

[jon.k]

Thank you, that makes sense. I thought I was going mad. It charges from a split charger so I’ll take it for a drive and see if it works when it’s being charged.

[robinmasters]

STREETWISES; contemporary reviews say the pezzer is the one to go for, because the (faster, more economical) diesel is a bit clattery. I don't mind clattery.

 

Is there any advantage to the petrol?

[Andyrew]

Found two of these, any idea what they came off?

 

 

 

[Lacquer Peel]

STREETWISES; contemporary reviews say the pezzer is the one to go for, because the (faster, more economical) diesel is a bit clattery. I don't mind clattery.

 

Is there any advantage to the petrol?

The petrol one probably drives a bit better because the K series is light and the L series is heavy but the L series is almost indestructible and goes like the clappers on boost in an R3.

L series for me.

[DodgeRover]

Anybody know how much of a job it is to change a starter motor on a c200 petrol merc? Its a 1999 model. Thanks

[Sir Snipes]

STREETWISES; contemporary reviews say the pezzer is the one to go for, because the (faster, more economical) diesel is a bit clattery. I don't mind clattery.

 

Is there any advantage to the petrol?

Cleaner, less stinky, less diesely.

[wuvvum]

More HGFey.

[puddlethumper]

Does anyone want about 150 litres of unfiltered veg ?

Could be as much as 200.