Twenty4Play

Just curious to know if anyone else has ran into a problem with their heads?

At the beginning of the year I purchased my '05 C230K SS, in the first month I had it towed to the dealer for the infamous vacuum hose service bulletin. Then 3 weeks later, similar symptoms arose, I thought for sure the stupid hose popped off or busted again, so I had the car towed in. After a week, my service adviser tells me that it's a valve spring issue and that's why it feels like it's not running on all fours. Since the car was approx. 6 months out of warranty, I had to pay for this. Luckily the dealer was willing pay for parts (obviously the cheapest part of the whole operation, but whatever, at least it's something). I think I ended up paying $1500 out of pocket for the valve job.

So I get the car home, everything is running great... then 1 month later, same exact symptoms (check engine light, and it feels like it's only running on half it's cylinders). I have the car towed in for the third time (I was smart enough to add roadside assistance to my insurance after the second towing. lol), the dealer keeps the car for nearly two weeks before telling me that it's the same problem, the valve springs went bad again. And the reason they went bad is because head is messed up - the head apparently passed their inspection during the first valve job. So this time, realizing they eff'd up, they offered to pay for labor and I was to pay for parts, another $1500 for valve springs and a new head.

I honestly didn't feel like I should have had to pay for the second valve job and head replacement, it was their fault it wasn't done right the first time. But I kept my mouth shut because I didn't want them to renege on their offer.

It's been about 6 months, I wanted to wait it out and make sure the car didn't act up again before I write Mercedes about this. I was just curious... anyone else have an issue like this? There's no reason a car with 34K should need a valve job, much less a head replacement unless the damned thing was defective to begin with!

LILBENZ230

What is your production date?

If you search "head issue" on the forum you should find that the 2003 M271 equipped cars had valve issues that lead to head replacements. However, the issue should have been fixed by the time the M271 was installed in 2005 model year vehicles. My producton date is 1/25/2005 on my car and I'm a few ticks under 60,000 miles with no engine issues over the life of the car.

Twenty4Play

I'll have to look at what my production date is.
Either way, it's been about 6 months since the issue was fixed, and no problems. So now I'm going to write a complaint letter to MB.

LILBENZ230

Well writing it out is good therapy.. which is all you'll be getting.

Twenty4Play

Haha.. probably so, but you never know - my parents got fully reimbursed from Cadillac many years ago for an out-of-warranty engine problem.

As long as I get some sort of acknowledgment from MB, I'll be partially satisfied.

wvadam

I think usually if you've already paid them its pretty hard to get the money back. They probabley made you sign a work authorization before they did the job which puts you in a bad spot because its basicly saying that you agreed to have the work done and pay the cost of parts of labor. Sorry thats a tough spot to be in.

Twenty4Play

Yes I did sign that, and it probably will kick me in the butt. It's all good though, it's been about 6 months since then, so the my pockets aren't hurting because of it. But it was surely a shocker when it happened!

Buellwinkle

Here's what I know on this issue and it affects some people, not others, don't think model years makes much of a difference other than 2003's have been on the road 2 years longer than 2005's.

They designed the head in a way that allows carbon deposits to build on the exhaust valve. So what happens is the valve can't seat properly, which causes a loss of compression and makes that cylinder misfire and you get misfire codes, but of course, with loss of compression in that cylinder, you are losing a good chunk of power. I've heard some dealers put in stronger valve springs, my guess is to add extra pressure on the valve to close and from what I heard, doesn't really work. Valve springs do not go bad in one month, it's just BS and what really happened is it may have worked then, but as more carbon accumulates, the less chance the stronger valve spring will help. What's weird is why they charged you so much, it doesn't require pulling the heads, just the valve covers, it's by no means what I would call a "valve job" and certainly by no means did they replace the head which retails for $2,090 not to mention all the gaskets you need (exhaust, intake, valve cover and head gasket at least, but there's more).

So what has been tried so far is to use a head cleaner like GM Top Engine or others. This seems to work temporarily, but not good enough. Someone tried it a few times and made some progress.

A more permanent fix is to replace the head, that's about $3,500 at the dealer, do it yourself with discount parts, figure half that, or $1,800 (new head for $1,500, tax, valve job gasket kit, fluids).

A cheaper fix is to pull the head, take it to a machine shop and have them do a complete valve job, new seats, grind valves (or new valves) and you can probably get that done for less than half what a new head costs. So figure 500-700 for the valve job, $125 for valve job gasket kit. Labor, if you didn't want to do it yourself (pulling and installing the head) is about 10 hours.

What I haven't figured out yet is why does it happend to some cars and not others. Just in my mind, i figure that people like me with a 6-spd that drive agressively and a high speeds on the open road and fill up with fuels that have additional additives and use additives on a regular basis have less of a chance than someone with short trips, drives slower, has an auto trans, maybe skimps on fuel quality. But that's just a thought, not sure what really happens. Some people have close to 200K miles on their C230 with no engine problems, so there has to be a reason.

LILBENZ230

Buell, in no way am I doubting your expertise - but it has been said time and again by people that the head design was changed in the M271 before production of the 2005 cars began.. "Late 2004".. I'm not sure if this was a rumor started by a person without any proof, but it's been said repeatedly by lots of different members. So I was thinking it was common knowledge.

Glyn M Ruck

Benz knows they have trouble with heads in areas like South Africa & the USA that still sell crap fuel. New heads - old heads - they all give trouble. We had a C180 M271 in the family, owned by a lady that went through one old design head & two new design heads in 100,000Km. All replaced at Benz cost of $4000 a pop every time for the complete job.

The M271 was designed to run on narrow cut Euro grade low sulphur fuel. Like the old Toyota 2E three valve per cylinder engine that was designed to run on narrow cut Japanese fuel these engines simply are not happy on half **** fuel. They build deposits on the back of the valve tulip that jam valves open & burn them & build deposits in the combustion chamber that become incandescent which leads to detonation that the knock sensor can do nothing about. This leads to head erosion & damage. The new design is better than the old one but not perfect by any means.

Until we have decent & more expensive gas the only answer is to run a fuel with a robust cleanup additive system like Techron and to drive the car hard which blows off some of the deposits.

Have a real go at MBUSA - they know they have a problem - It's no surprise that they chose not to sell the 4 cylinder W204s in the US - including the CGI.

Here is a pic of Ichibans valves on a 271 running on Techron. As you can see the deposits are bad where the fuel can't get but at least the valves are clean & won't hang up.

Buellwinkle

Seen the problem on 2005's, ironically never seen it on a 2004, just 2003 and 2005's. Maybe it's just this forum, but on the other MB forum, it's hit at least 2 or 3 2005's. I'm not an expert on this by any means, just repeating what people have experienced, what they have done to try and fix it. Funny that MB is pushing this valve spring thing, haven't seen that work once yet. Just hope it doesn't happen to me. I'm pretty sure you see more 2003's because they have a 2 year head start on the 2005's.

It's easy to tell, do a cylinder leak down test and see if it's the exhaust valve, if it is, then it's the same problem, what else could it be other than a dirty or burnt valve. I figure the more you drive it that way, the valve gets burnt and you have to pull the heads, nothing else you can do.

For those not familiar with a cylinder leak down test, a single piston being tested is set at top dead center where both valves are closed, the spark plug for that cylinder is replaced by an air fitting adapter with pressure gauge and the cylinder is filled with compressed air and a measurement is taken to see how much pressure it can hold and how much it leaks, a leakage of 20% or more is not good. The real value is to find the leak path, is it the rings, the intake or exhaust valve so you listen for were the hiss comes from, if it's the exhaust valve, it will hiss through the exhaust, if it's the intake valve it will hiss through the throttle body, if it's the rings it will his through the dipstick hole. You could try and hit the valves with a mallet to break up the carbon and seat the valve. I know when my Macbook was acting up, a good wack fixed it.

It could be the head gasket, but haven't seen that problem yet on the M271, more of an M111 thing.

LILBENZ230

Well I run Techron and drive the crap out of my car.. so hopefully this won't happen to my car. Will pass 60,000 miles in a few days and runs/looks/drives like a champ. I had a few issues while under warranty, but overall it's one of the most reliable cars I've ever owned.

Glyn M Ruck

Matt - in your kind of service I doubt you will have a problem - I know Sue always drove her car gently & maybe this was to her detriment. What did surprise me was that she also did a number of long trips per year - very fond of our game parks which are 2000Kms from Cape Town. These long high speed runs did not stop the problem from occuring.

dmatre

I'm not too convinced that hard driving will keep the valves clear of deposits. I drive my car very lightly when around town (averaging 29.6mpg over the past 15k miles). It does see bursts of high-rpms when I get the opportunity to wind through the mountains, but otherwise it's loafing along <=2000rpm. I've now got 112k miles on the clock, and no problems (knock on wood) until now with deposits on the head/valves.

I have religiously used 'Top-Tier' fuels since the car was new. Given the evidence presented in this thread above, I would tend to believe that the quality of the fuel has a greater influence than the rpm/fuel flow.

Has anyone used only top-tier fuels and also suffered the problem? Chime in if you have.

Twenty4Play

Yep, I only use premium. And I still encountered this issue, but to be fair, I have no idea what fuel the previous owner used.

drexappeal

I've heard of different issues in the 2005 models, that I never really encountered in my 2004.5., knock on wood. A lot of it having to deal with CEL, but all different issues though.

The only real "major" issue that I've had was replacing the starter recently, which is CRAZY weird for newer model benzos. In fact, I couldn't really find anybody having to get a new starter on the w203, at least on this forum (although, I didn't take that much time to search because I just brought the car to my shop that I trust completely).

dmatre

Premium is one thing, but Top-Tier is another. It's a certification for gasoline that meets minimum additive performance standards: http://www.toptiergas.com/

It directly relates to control of deposits on fuel injectors, intake valves and combustion chambers. http://www.toptiergas.com/deposit_control.html

Glyn M Ruck

Hard driving is just about the only thing that will keep exhaust valves clean & blow off deposits. Hence the Benz crude high RPM for 10 minutes fix.

Experience in SA tells me that inlet valves hang up just as often as exhaust if not more. Fuel additives can only really keep the fuel system, inlet system & combustion chambers clean. They do little for exhaust valves.

+1 your main point however - Use of the best fuel money can buy is mandatory for these engines. They are fuel fussy.

EDIT - when I say hard driving I do NOT mean BRUTAL driving. I mean high velocity hottest possible gas flow though the exhaust valves for a reasonable duration. Like climbing a long hill at 5000 RPM WOT a couple of times. You will see incandescent carbon flying out of the exhaust & smoldering in the road if the engine is really fouled.

drexappeal

Wow, interesting that you mention this, Glyn. I live in the hills and suring my commute home, I'll punch it to WOT, just to get up the hill a little faster. I wonder if that contributes to my never experiencing any issues like this.

Glyn M Ruck

Drex - I'm sure it has helped. I drove my family member's C180 up a hill close by a number of times holding it in gear at WOT. Every time I went back down the hill to do another run there was smoldering/smoking carbon lying in the road. I could also see it in the rear view mirror while climbing.

Your starter motor failure is as rare as rocking horse sheeit!!

LILBENZ230

Glyn, I know I've read it before - but could you post details of Benz's crude high-RPM fix?

So driving uphill at 5000rpm holding is a good thing to do from time to time to keep exhaust valves clean? Eh, my car sees redline and WOT.. a lot.

C230 Sport Coup

I think there's more than enough cases of this going around that MB ought to step up. It's embarrassing.

LILBENZ230

Agreed. I took a relative's 2007 C230 for service early today at a dealership in Atlanta. The service advisor and I were talking about my car and her car and he said "Oh you got the last year of the kompressor C-class?" and I said "Yeah, the M271." and he said "Good engine...." (literally pausing and looking at me before finishing) "..if you take care of it."

The way he said it and the fact he said it tells me all I need to know about what he's probably seen in his tenure there (was a tech first back in 2003).

And - one last thing - he said as a technician from 2003-2008 he did many, many oil/filter changes on M271 cars and has never personally seen a fleece filter for one. He's always used paper.

Glyn M Ruck

Matt - I don't know the Benz 5000RPM prodedure. I've been told about it by my service manager & I am sure I've read about it on this forum somewhere. Guess we should both STFF. I remember my SM raising his eyebrows at this proceedure. He like me did not like holding the engine at high RPM unloaded. Some engines are sensitive to this but Benz are obviously happy with it or desperate.

C230 Sport Coup. Yes it is embarrasing. My Service Manager said to me a while back that they had not seen a single head or cam sensor problem on a W204 yet & we have some high in the miles already. Seems Benz have improved matters. Also - all our refineries have been through an upgrade to meet new mandated fuel specs. We are not at European standards yet but much better than the early 2000's.

LILBENZ230

I'll just continue to run top tier fuel and techron shots and drive the crap out of mine while hoping for the best. I plan to post a detailed 60,000 miles review in a few days. I'm satisfied with my C230 and it's earned a place in my garage for years to come.