Hans Ertl

This took place over the summer and I'm just getting around to sharing our journey down this road that we haven't traveled much before. My background is in Mitsubishi cars (specifically the 3000GT VR4). That's what we do for a living (restore, rebuild, and modify them). I posted this story on a private forum we are on, so I'll just copy and paste from there.... as I probably will forget too many details if I start typing now (so excuse some of the references in there) .

So, this is all Emilie's fault. I just need to start it like that to make myself feel better. But lately she's been wanting a car to drive instead of the SUV. Something that won't cost as much to part in NYC. So, she decided to look into a Mercedes sedan. That was problem number 1. I know she can't have the basic model of any car/truck. She finds out about the CL600 and goes nuts. But, she hates that it's a coupe. Then, she finds out about the S600 and goes on a major hunt. I'm pretty sure our kids starved and went without a bath for a week while she learned about this thing. So, next thing I know.... we're looking for 03+ models of the S600. Why? Because it has a V12 twin turbo engine. You know.... to get the kids to play group.

She sees a bunch that she likes. We almost pull the trigger on a couple of different ones. But, I told her I'd rather spend the money on fixing the other house than on something like this. Well, that was until she sends me a link to one that had some interior vandalizing done to it. Looking at the pictures of it, it screams insurance job. There are random harnesses cut all over the place. The seats, dash, air bags, etc are all slashed with a knife. One little (and extremely cheap to replace) window was broken.... not even near a door handle or the lock mechanism. So, I consider it... because my Jewjitsu radar is going nuts. We get the carfax report and it looks great. It's been in Florida pretty much it's entire life and serviced at a dealer. Then went up to Mass for a few years and also serviced at a reputable place (nothing like me). I agree and we work with the guy on a price.... significantly less than market value... like on the edge of being free fiddy. Then we agree to pick it up the following weekend.

Emilie finds out she has a wedding shower that weekend, so she just looks at me and goes "why don't we leave now?". I'm thinking to myself.... well, it's ****ing 8pm on a saturday and it's a holiday weekend. I don't really want to go. So, we leave that night and go to Maine... because that's what happens. Spend the night an hour away from the car at her sister's place and leave semi early to go grab it. Mind you... we're towing with our MB ML500 that is now severely over the safe limits of it's towing capabilities... especially with no trailer brakes.



Well, we made it. And it towed extremely well. We cruised at 65-70 mph the whole way. Had time to stop by her mom's house in CT for some dinner. And we were home by 10:30 pm Sunday.

Here's a couple of pictures of the interior. We're looking to pickup another one in the insurance auction to replace the interior.







First thing was first. This had 2 engine codes for a misfire (something we knew about before buying it). It's a common issue with these cars. Generally remedied with replacing a coil pack. That may not seem like a big deal. But there are only 2 of them on the whole engine. Each cylinder has 2 spark plugs, so each coil drives 12 plugs. They are also $1400 each (or rebuildable much cheaper). So, I scan this thing and see cylinder 3 and 11. I think to myself "****, that's both banks"... aka, both coils. I start on cylinder 3 and find a spark plug gapped totally shut. I regap that guy and scope the cylinder. All is well in there. So I put that side back together and work on the other side. Cylinder 11 has the wrong damn spark plugs in it! They are gapped too high as well. I think I hit the jackpot. So I regap them and switch them with plugs from another cylinder to see if the problem follows the plugs. Sure enough, as my luck would have it, it stays on cylinder 11. This bank has a brand new coil pack on it already. Problem is, the wrong plugs. They burned out the coils for that cylinder. Repairing it can cost between $130 and $275, so it shouldn't be too bad. They are also a lot easier to get to than one might imagine.



I've also fixed a couple of small issues with it. The driver side headlight did nothing. So, I had to remove the front bumper in order to address the issue. It really does help if they actually plug the headlight in. That's all it was.
Also, the switch on the driver front door would not operate the driver rear glass. I popped the switch panel off to find 3 cut wires. Slap them back together and it works just fine.



There are a few more wires that are cut throughout the car. So, I'm waiting on a factory service manual to arrive to help me trace everything. The door locks don't work, trunk doesn't auto open, and the privacy window shade in the rear doesn't roll down. They are all tied together in the same circuit, but I need the diagrams to help pinpoint the issue.

I already have a new water pump, heat exchanger pump, accessory belt, belt tensioner and idler pulleys, spark plugs, and fluids/filters to do. Then I'll work on other stuff. After it's all sorted, a nice ecu/tcu reflash will be in store. It will bump it up from 493 hp to a low low 620 hp... oh, and around 700+ ft-lbs of torque. That will still allow the kids to be late to everything!

Hans Ertl

Last night I got the new IC/Heat Exchanger pump installed. This one is a little bit of an upgrade from stock... but the same size. The stock ones are a known trouble spot and are well undersized. This upgrade is still a bit on the "too small" side, but it wasn't a bank breaker and it was available right away. Better than a broken one.



The old pump was totally shot. But, that's probably because the IC system had no fluid in it. And that is probably the reason why I smelled a faint coolant smell when we got the car.



Going through some of the electronics, I find this gem. There is a refrigerator option. Once the car is sorted out, I may be hunting one of these down. They are kinda small, but would be nice for the kids on a long trip.





So, after I got side tracked with the refrigerator, I went on to diagnose an electrical issue. None of the door locks work and the trunk has to be opened with a key. No assist on it. And the doors don't "soft close". There is a vacuum pump inside the car that does all of these features. That pump is shot. But, the parts car will have one.... so hoping it's good. If not, they are around $200 for a used one.



Pump got a little hot on the ground side of things.



I had pulled the pump apart to check the impeller (which is also a common fail point on the motor). All seemed ok. I think the motor is just shot. There can be an issue with an electrical contact on the circuit board that can make the pump run non-stop. That's probably the case with this one.



Some maintenance stuff came in today. Just to put the amount of spark plugs in perspective.

Hans Ertl

Parts car #1 acquired

Hans Ertl

Getting the parts car off of the trailer was a fun operation... especially since Emilie arrived to the garage with it when it was dark out :p. I stole the wheels from the other S600 to throw on this guy in order to get it off of the trailer.



I got the air pump from the parts car and installed it into the other one. Now the door locks, head rests, and trunk function like they should. I grabbed the ignition coils from the parts car and installed the driver side one onto the good car. Still showed a cylinder 11 misfire. So, I'm pulling injectors to clean them out and reseal them. I'll swap cylinder 11 injector with cylinder 12 to see if the misfire follows. Also doing valve cover gaskets. These guys are pretty damn long! But, the engine does look clean for 107k miles.



Swapped out the plugs on the driver side of the engine as well. Old vs. New.



Cleaning out the injectors using an ultra sonic cleaner and some degreaser. There was some build up on the injector filters, so I'm hoping a good cleaning fixes that.



I ripped out the intercooler system to make it easier to work on. Dealing with the valve covers while the intercooler system was still installed made for a bad time.



Wheels and brake calipers are going out today for powder coat. New tires, brake pads, and rotors are on their way. I should have the wheels and calipers back tomorrow (hoping).

Hans Ertl

I got my rubbers in today too!

Hans Ertl

The bolts that hold the ignition coil cassette are notorious for stripping out... as is just about any other threaded boss in the valve cover. So, I used some Timeserts to rethread the holes. Hopefully no more jiggly ignition coil cassette, intercooler, and intake box!





This is the hole that is drilled, counter sunk, and tapped to receive the timesert.



This little timesert that shouldn't strip ever again.



And that little bugger installed into the valve cover. 6 holes in total were repaired. 3 other holes were just cleaned up with a tap. Tomorrow I will get to the other valve cover.

Hans Ertl

So, more things happened to the car. First, cleaned the damn injectors hoping to fix that #11 misfire.

Before



After (with all new seals)



Then it was time to tackle the job I dreaded the most.... the water pump. You basically have to tear off the front of the car to do this.



Got the damn serpentine belt out of the way. It was 1 tooth short of a 6 tooth belt that it is supposed to have. Some numb nuts installed it wrong and it shredded off one of the teeth.



Then Mercedes wants you to use some special $275 tool to get the crank pulley bolt off. So, I spent 3 hours making 3 different holders.... which all failed :p.



Tool attempt #1



Tool attempt #2



No pictures of #3, but I was sure it would work. Instead, it failed. So, I had to remove the radiator, ac condenser, suspension cooler, power steering cooler, and heat exchanger in order to use my impact gun on the bolt. Viola!

After all of that, it's all back together with new pulleys, tensioner, belt, and water pump.



I got the whole nose back on for the first time in what seems like forever!



Then, comes stripping the parts car. Now, I usually do all of this stuff at night time (working until as long as I can). But, doing the parts car strip outside made that not feasible. So, I stole my one mechanic and we spent the day stripping this hooker.









Car is back up and running better than ever! No more misfires, and purrs so nice. I guess when you just throw the whole parts bomb at it, it's bound to work! And,we got some cool parts back from powder coat. I couldn't let Dan be the only one with purple bits. Although these are going on a woman driven car :p.











I would have mounted the tires to the wheels, but I was sent the wrong TPMS valve stems. So, I need to call my place up tomorrow to get that fixed. Then, all that is left is a couple of front suspension bushings, bleed the brakes, inner fender covers in the front, swap in the new interior, and a detail! Plenty of time to accomplish that before Sunday!

Hans Ertl

So, got back to working on this turd because I'm tired of looking at it and not driving it. The battery ended up taking a dump. I replaced it with a new Interstate AGM battery ($225) and now I don't have any more errors and my trunk closes properly. Go figure! It's also seemed to gain a little bit of power. I'm guessing this battery just couldn't handle the draw. It's a super high amperage draw on this thing. Just connecting the battery for the first time and I saw almost 20 amp draw right away. I can't imagine what the draw is while starting the car and powering up all of the on board computers, but I'm sure the lack of power of the battery contributed to some errors.

Traction control now works perfectly. With it off, you can still do a burn out, but it's very controlled. It's like a low speed burnout :p.



I brought it over to Moto East and got it aligned. It was so bad, I had to eye ball an alignment on the car before I could even take the 1/2 mile trip to their shop. I'm willing to bet the front toe was over 15 degrees out.



The initial readings from my eye ball alignment. They were pretty spot on!



I had my mechanic drive it (since he has an inspection license and it's not inspected yet) and it is pretty smooth. I do have some new hydraulic suspension components to install which should help with the ride as well. They have these 4 accumulators in the system that are pressurized. They are basically a pressurized fluid reservoir and supply fluid on demand. If the pressurized sack in the accumulator bursts, then the fluid just fills the whole thing with no static pressure pushing on the fluid. This can cause the suspension to feel a little bouncy. The life expectancy on those is said to be around 80k miles. With 107k on it, I'm sure they are original and probably shot.



Also, with the battery having died, I think it took out my main gauge cluster as well. It's a common issue and easily rebuilt. Right now I have the cluster in from the parts car so the odometer doesn't read anything.

This thing is pretty beast. With the traction control "off" but still active in the background, you can get it sideways in a turn. But, it's almost as if it's a very controlled motion. Really weird feeling. If I put it in dyno mode, I'm sure I'll wreck it :p.

Next up is to install the rebuilt suspension valve blocks (just new o-rings on some solenoids that tend to leak over time), new accumulators, and I need to figure out the hard start problem it has if it's left to sit overnight. It loses fuel pressure and takes way too long to start. Could be fuel pump or injectors. I will probably start with a pump and filter and then work my way to the injectors.

Hans Ertl

Started working on the paint until I get a lift free'd up so I can finish up some of the suspension work. The hood was pretty ****ty. I went over it quick with a buffer and realized that it would just be easier to wet sand and buff it, so that's what I did.









I also got the trunk buffed out. It was pretty much the same as the hood, but I didn't wet sand this part. It's small enough to just hit it with compound instead. The trunk also got a new emblem. I'll try to pull the license plate bezel off and see if my PDR guy can push out that little dent by the S600 emblem.



The roof is in crappy condition too. I'm really not looking forward to buffing that part out. It's a really long roof!

Hans Ertl

Ok, finally got around to replacing some parts of the hydraulic suspension. There are 4 of these black ball shaped things. 2 accumulators, 1 pulsation damper, and 1 return damper. If you really want a read, this guy makes a nice webpage that explains how the suspension works and how to troubleshoot issues. http://mercedes-abc-drive-carefully.blogspot.com/

Our issue was that if you hit a bump, the ABC (Active Body Control) warning light would flash for a second and then immediately turn off. If you weren't looking at the gauge cluster, you would never know. I was able to replicate this by driving the car over the rollers of the dyno to be a more controlled environment.

So, I replaced all 4 of these guys. The pulsation damper basically dampens the pressure pulses created by the pump. This pump is both the power steering pump and suspension pump combined in one unit. In order to keep the suspension from fluctuating pressure due to pulses from the pump, this guy is inline first. All of these items that I replaced have a pressurized bladder in them. If the part fails (the bladder bursts) then the ball just fills with fluid and doesn't do it's job. It will cause a humming sound at low rpms... which this car had.

Next is a front accumulator for the front struts, and a rear accumulator for the rears. These are the same pressure bladder system. But, they offer steady pressure at each strut that the pump can't instantaneously provide. If they blow, then they also fill with hydraulic fluid (you'll notice your fluid level drop in the reservoir) and it can cause your warning light to flash on when you hit a bump. The front one was blown, but I replaced them both. They usually have a life of 80-100k miles.

Then, the rear accumulator. I guess this regulates fluid pressure going back to the reservoir. Not really sure there. But I replaced that ******* too.

Here's what some of them look like.



Now the suspension works just as it should and it's time to release this turd into the wild. So, here it is after a quick clean up.





I found the square bumper cover piece that covers the tow hook area in the trunk, so that's not longer missing. Just need a few more exterior details and it's good enough. Also, time to get rid of the minivan! Oh YEA!

Hans Ertl

And for more current news now. I still haven't work on it to figure out the long start issue it has after sitting for a while. I haven't done anything to the fuel system besides reseal the injectors and clean them up. I'm going to replace the fuel filter this week while doing the transmission fluid/filter (since I bought the filter over a month ago). But, from what it seems to be doing, it could be a leaking fuel injector. I've just been reluctant to replace them.

It also has a humming/buzzing noise while going straight or turning right. If you turn left, it goes away. If you really give it gas and then let off, it gets a bit louder. I have to check the engine mounts on it while it's in the air doing the trans fluid/filter. Most likely they need to be replaced.

After I get those few quirks worked out, the car will be in pretty good shape again! And for significantly less than others on the market (if I consider my labor free) with all of the maintenance up to date.

Welwynnick

That's a great story, and glad to see a great car getting the attention it deserves.

People like to talk about good cars and bad cars, but I think you can make most cars good.

Nick

Hans Ertl

There are very few bad cars. There are far more bad owners though.

Welwynnick

There certainly are.

Was this one caught in the middle of a messy divorce?

Did your wife write about this car elsewhere? The story sounds familiar.

Nick

Hans Ertl

I believe she posted some bits about it before. Looks like it was an insurance job. It needed so much that I'm sure it was not affordable for the 2nd owner to fix. Typical on what happens when it gets out of control. The front bushings were so bad, that after I changed them the front toe had to be out over 15 degrees. I tried driving it down the road while it was wet and I couldn't manage to go over 35 mph without fear of wrecking the car.

prs600

Thanks for sharing the story of the transformation. Seems as though you've covered all potential niggles! Great job, and I'm sure this S600 will serve you well for years.

Hans Ertl

Thanks. We certainly hope so. For our initial purchase price, we weren't expecting much. But, this is certainly a big bang for the buck car if you can do service work yourself.

ANGMED

..........And the price tag for a job like this done at the dealer.....$655,880.
Oh man, to think I own one like it scares all the s... out of me.

WELL DONE, prs600, tipping my hat to you.

Hans Ertl

Yea. I could imagine it would be costly to pay the dealer to do this job. Without labor, I'm probably into the whole car for under $9k (and that includes buying a parts car, the original car, and all of the other replacement parts). It certainly helped to get a smoking deal on the car to start with.

DrDoe

Great jobs but I don't understand why you would not want to pickup a clean one for about the same $ and save the labor. Plus avoid a rebuild title.

Hans Ertl

Because any one of these out there will need work. And I'd be in it even more money. Now, I have a slew of new parts on it that I know will last a long time. And I'm starting a complete service history. With a "clean" one, you could still need to do any of this stuff (except for the interior) so you would be out even more money. The bonus is that this car has a clean title.

Jack_88

Well done, it's looking good. You've got a lot a work into it, but that's alright, at least you won't really have a lot of surprises. I wish I could delve into repairs with that kind of confidence. Funny thing, I got a tool for the crank to remove it, cost $65, when my water pump failed. Didn't fit, had to grind it down for a while but after that it did the trick. Bolt was tough as a son of a gun to get off. A tuned M275 surprises all kinds of people when it's going good, though. Enjoy!

Hans Ertl

Thanks. It's actually quite an easy car to work on. I can see how it could be intimidating. But with the proper resources, anything can be done. Sometimes you just need to dive right in!

Jack_88

Oh, I do. And it gets done, after much cursing and digging around here looking for help. I still get nervous, but I hate wasting money on repairs. Which is important, because even my nice low mileage example would have beaten my wallet senseless by now if I ran to the dealer for all the things I've had to sort out. Water pump, rear valve block, transmission electrical connector leaking into the TCU, stuck in park, tail light failure, engine misfires, and normal maintenance catch up. Almost 6 months in, hoping the latest batch of things needing attention is the last for a while.

DrDoe

Ok. It makes some sense for a clean title car but I'm still unsure about the price/labor point.
Perhaps west coast vs. east coast price point.

I guess there's another way to go about this: pick one up for cheap from people who wants to get out badly.