Tru - your MPG does not make sense unless the worn O2 sensors were letting her trend a little lean. I would have expected driveability problems in the cold weather you have had if this were the case.

Mayonnaise under the oil cap - I would not be over concerned with your duty cycle. Clean it off & watch it. Worst case scenario would be a leaking head gasket which is easily checked by the dealer with a kit to check for combustion by-products in the coolant. You might be able to lay hands on one of these kits in the aftermarket in the US.

Your silicone grease intention is about all that will give you longer term lubrication on those joints.

 

Glyn, Im hoping the spring time improves my fuel efficiency.

Random note: Im in LA with my camera. Keepin my eyes open for the fellow w203s

 

rain day 203s...lol

 

yea... no kiddin, thankfully there should be some sun tomorrow!

 

hey frank i have a 06 c230 and that bumper is sweet how can i get one.....?????????

[/quote]

 

hey any one knows if on a 06 c230 can i fit the new led fog ligth the ones the goes straigth across then drops down........???????????????

 

Aight, I spent a couple hours several weekends back cleaning off all of the ball joints on the adjustable camber arms and reapplied the silicone grease and all is well once again. It took a few days for the sounds to fully go away, but I can tell that the grease is "sticking" much better than the previous spray on lubricant.

My fuel economy has begun to improve also with the return of non-winter fuel.

Otherwise, the car has not changed while I have been busily relocating into the city. Its been running great, so no complaints. Hopefully will get a chance to install those euro impact strips soon.

Shoutout to all my NYC MBworlders: Ive got a trip out to NYC in May from the 13th - 16th - I will be armed w/ the camera and looking to see some cars. Get at me!

 

you can take pics for waveykat/mike...LOL...

 

haha, ill make sure to get pix of that exhaust

 

you know am down!

 

Random update: The engine just decided to stop today when I came to a stop at a light. I put the car in park, and it started up without any check engine lights or issues at all. After some searching Ive come to consider two items: the Crank Position Sensor and the Throttle Position Sensor (or something along those lines), but I will be taking the car to the shop into have it plugged into the SDS just in case - would suck to have the car die on me on the highway or something of the sort.

Any suggestions? Ideas?

Aside from this, my move into the city has resulted in TONS of door dings chipped paint and scratches I just don't get how other car owners can be so inconsiderate of their car doors and paint... Not mention the damage to other people's cars.

edit: my fuel economy has returned to its usual efficiency with the return of summer fuel.

 

probably your cps went out.

 

Well, the time at the shop definitely showed that the CPS (crankshaft) was dead. We had it replaced after we tested the one that came w/ the car from the factory.

Steps to test your CPS:

1. Remove it from the car and test its current between its two prongs. Current should not be zero.
2. Heat up the end of the CPS that does the reading w/ a heat gun.
3. Check the current again and if the current reads zero, then the CPS has failed.

We found my CPS to be malfunctioning and replaced it, but the car still was stuttering when at a stop or at slow speeds, so the car is still at the shop. The car feels like it just wants to die all the time. NO codes at all. SDS showed no signs of misfires either, so we didnt think it was the wires/coils.

Worste case: Something w/ the fueling or throttle is messed up

They said I *should* get the car back to tomorrow evening. Until then, the 255 from DT Seattle to Kirkland is takin me to work

 

Well, SDS showed that there were definitely no misfires and the throttle body (and the relative sensors) seemed to be fully functioning. This led the shop to believe something was up with the fuel pump or fuel sender unit.

Fuel sender sends fuel from one side of the saddle fuel tank to the other side where the fuel pump is. They were able to test the fuel pressure from the fuel sending unit and discover that it was very low. When the fuel tank was opened up, we found that the fuel sender unit's side had fuel in it, but was not sending fuel to the side with the fuel pump. So the car knew there was fuel to use, but little/no fuel was reaching the fuel pump from the sender unit which would mean little/no fuel would show up at the injectors resulting in stuttering.

When the shop replaced the fuel sender unit, they found that a VIN split resulted in updated wiring and hardware (seals/hoses/pump) to work with the new fuel sender. I gave them the go ahead to update the fuel pump also as opposed to finding the older generation's fuel sender unit.

~700 dollars in parts and ~300 dollars in labor later.... the car is its peppy self again, but the whole cabin smells of fuel... Hopefully itll go away with some driving with the windows down. I suppose if this new hardware can last me another 123k miles, ill be pretty content

 

Happy B-day Dude! enjoy!

 

Happy Birthday Tru - & many more!!

 

Happy Birthday!

 

Thanks yall Sometime next year will be my car's 10th bday! :x

 

same what are you giving your car? I plan to give my car at least a hood paint job. Built April 2010 delivered to first owner May 26th 2001 (My B day) lol

 

Happy Birthday!!

 

I just crossed 125k miles and the car has been doing me well My goal is to hit 250k w/ this car, so I am half way there and the car is still looking good (aside from the dent in my front bumper that Im putting off...). I entered this long weekend w/ a few mods in mind: Secondary cat delete and installing a custom rear strut tie bar.

I went in Friday to have my Secondary cats deleted, and the shop insisted that they GUT the secondary cats instead. I passed because I wasnt sure what the benefit was aside from appearing to have stock secondary cats in place. After coming home and googling some, I found several mags and dyno results showing that gutted cats would result in a LOSS of power as opposed to a straight pipe that would result in power gains. This was reported apparently due to the cat's larger chamber causing turbulence and slowing the exhaust flow. I intend to go back to my shop and ask them to just chop my secondary cats out and replace them w/ straight pipes. Any questions/comments would be great about this subject of straight pipe vs secondary cats. I havent seen it discussed at all. I am surprised that the 203 has so many people chopping the secondary cats, but no one is offering test pipes for the secondaries.

I installed the custom rear strut tie bar that Ive had sitting in my garage for several months now. I wasnt expecting to feel much of a difference after installing these, but I was very pleasantly surprised. The rear end seems to stay SOOO much more composed even on very simple driving. Installation took a matter of minutes and the guts to cut your trunk lining (oh nos). I am very happy w/ this item and would highly suggest it for spirited drivers Ill report back w/ more long term results in a month or so... especially now that the weather is warmer and dry

Unfortunately, I have also found that my top vent near the windshield also is now just radomly ticking for long periods of time. Ticking loudly and kind of out of my control. I guess Im going to have to rip apart my entire dash and fix ALL of my stepper motor/linkage issues some day. This task just feels sooo daunting that I am very hesitant to take care of it. I have got to have at least 3 or 4 items in my HVAC system that need "visiting."

I still have a set of authentic euro impact strips sitting around, but now that @Karo has finally posted the key to deactivating the warnings, I am gonna be rollin through my shop asap and having my light warnings deactivated I cant wait to install the euro impact strips - they're SOOO much cleaner.

Happy 4th!

 

pics!! of the strut bar!

taking out the secondary will give you some power, but it will be pretty loud since it also sort of act as a sound canceller as well and most people are doing it for the sound. I'd do it for power, but I'm not sure I can tolerate anymore noise coming from my already loud car.

as for gutting the secondary, I wouldn't do it since the effect on emission in reality when you take them off is very little, so it's better to just take them off. by gutting it you are leaving a void in the exhaust flow which can create turbulence as you have read. The key to power is to balance the scavenge of the exhaust and have enough back pressure.

euro impact strip FTW!

 

Frank, Ill grab pix of the strut bar later tonight - I am finally done messing w/ the strut bar.

Story: Of course, w/ all installation of any sort of rear suspension (for me at least) I created some sort of creaking/squeaking noise after installing the bar, so I took a few stabs at tightening things down, but the noises persisted. I applied silicone grease (surprise) all over the rubber bushing on the top of the rear dampers and the noise has not not returned. Silence at last.

As a rule of thumb: whenever dealing any suspension involving contact between metal and rubber one should always apply water resistant silicone grease to prevent unwanted noises and save yourself headaches.

As for removing my secondaries, the shop refused to remove them insisting that gutting them would be just as efficient. Well, they didn't refuse they just wanted to triple the price on me when I told them that gutting the cats would result in more turbulence and power loss. They keep insisting that gutting it will be just as effective - I think they're just being lazy about wanting to cut/bend piping for me. Why hasn't someone created a w203 "test" pipe for the secondary cats?!

I am hoping to get these secondary cats out SOON - for the power AND the sound, but I HOPE I can get this done before the end of the summer so I can enjoy the mod!

Frank - I don't think my exhaust is anywhere NEAR as sexy sounding (or loud) as yours The SuperSprint axle back is very subtle - I don't think the secondary cats being removed would change the sound THAT much. Ive been in Mike's (waveykat's) car and his car was pretty mean sounding, but I believe that was mostly due to the AMG axle back.

Turns out my shop does not have developer mode to disable my side marker warning Any suggestions in the Seattle area with developer would be awesome!

Question: Has anyone tried to retrofit a 3 spoke steering wheel from the coupe (say a m112 coupe) on a preface-lifted sedan? I'm gettin' tired of my giant steering wheel.

Note: The car averaged 27.9 mpg the other day w/ (honest) mixed city and highway driving for about 55 miles. Shes still doing good *knock on wood*

Oil change and coming up soon also!

So many good DIYs comin up lately! Gives me the ITCH to mod more and more. haha.

 

I grabbed a quick pic of the bar installed in the trunk:



Note: I could have sure used a reference photo to figure out how/where to cut my trunk liner, but now ive got access to the top of the rear struts for adjustment when/if needed

Oh and heres a photo I grabbed a while ago, but forgot to post:

 

Tru - your car is ultra neat - I like the bar. Not many cars at 125K with a trunk that clean!