my '88 190E w/ 230K cold starts and runs great with normal fuel consumption. however, if, after driving for a while, with temp in normal range, i shut the engine off and immediately try to restart, it cranks fine but won't start. after 3-4 mins of off time, it starts right up and runs normally. the symptoms are quite consistant over the last month or so.

all ideas welcome.

tom

 

the cause of the reported problem was a bad spark coil, or rather an incorrect coil install for a previously failed oem coil. the original oem coil failed a year early while the car was in mazatlan mexico. a clever mechanic substituted a vw jeta coil to get me going again. the jeta coil worked for almost exactly a year until the car was once again in mazatlan, mexico (about 10k miles). i had purchased a used mb oem coil on ebay and had it with me and was able to make the switch myself. upon inspection of the jeta coil, i found it did not have the same hv connection configuration as the mb coil (pin type rather than sleeve) and there was evidence of arching at the hv connection.

 

wow, thats awsome. Well that sucks, but thats awsome too. Ill keep it in mind if my car does that.