jakehz

So I had a bad idle with my c230 for about 6 months. I replaced the spark plugs and it ran beautifully for about 1 month and went back to a rough idle at low rpms. I took it in a ran the cel codes and it came out p2187 and p2189 bank 1 and 2. Im gonna take it back in to completely diagnose but I went home anyway and pulled the maf out and added a bit of oil. when I put everything back on I drove back to my own house (I was at my moms because it was close) and about 30 seconds into driving the car went into what I would have thought limp mode. It actually died when i pulled over. turned it back on and drove the rest of the way home barely getting home on extremely rough idle. Did some research and eventually unplugged the mac sensor and it ran better still had the normal shake if not a little bit more but never coughed or got close to stalling on me. Any ideas?
thanks

Glyn M Ruck

P2187 = System Too Lean at Idle
P2189 = System Too Lean at Idle

What did you add a bit of oil to?

Does the temperature gauge behave normally?

Potential problems.

- Temperature sensor bad giving wrong data to ECU for open loop enrichment when cold.
- MAF needs cleaning or is toast.
- Check fuel pressure at the Schrader valve on the front fuel rail that connects the injectors s/b > 3.8bar or 55 psi. Might have clogged fuel filter or bad fuel pump.
- Check all vacuum lines & breather pipes for a leak.

mtnman82

What year? Sounds like the infamous '$12 hose' issue, if it hasn't been in for that service or recall yet.

LauraG

My C230 (2003) started to idle roughly out of the blue a week ago. My mechanic has changed the ignition coil and spark plugs but that did little. I am now told my cylinder head needs to be re-machined, there is a problem with my camshaft adjusters and my timing chain is making noise. $3-6k fix. This from driving perfectly one week + 1 day ago.
I hope this will not be your problem - and I would appreciate any input regarding my problem.
Fix or sell car?

mtnman82

Nooooo, it very likely is not your head and may very well be the same $12 hose I mentioned above. Ask them for the engine codes that were pulled up and post back here. Search this forum for ' $12 hose' and/or see the sticky at the top of the forum 'M271 2003-2005 C230 guys go to the dealer now free work/recall' - post #9 in the recall thread has the campaign # (2008020002). Go to another dealer and ask them if this recall has ben done yet (jakehz you too). Or maybe just call them with you VIN and this campagn # and ask if it needs to be done. This is the rough idle. There is also a recall for the camshaft solenoid adjusters - if that recall hasn't been done yet anything related should be free of charge. The timing chain is something that seems like it should be replaced at ~100K on these cars, which should be ~$500 (ballpark) job.

jakehz

Sorry forgot to mention its the o6 m272 engine and i added oil to the normal oil cap. thats kinda besides the point but I'm ordering a new mac and will see what happened from their also thinking there may be an leak in one of the hoses. also i noticed the left hose coming from the from of the bomber to the engine cover is slightly corroded and badly placed on the end could this cause problems?

mtnman82

My first suspect would be a vacuum leak somewhere (i.e. a leak in one of the hoses somewhere in the intake track). The hose going to the engine cover may be contributing, but there may also be another leak somewhere else (usually the hoses going to the engine cover are 'breather' hoses).

jakehz

so installed a new maf helped a bit then did some digging and pulled all the plugs on one side and found that one was touching the diode (probably not what its called) but i pulled it apart and the girl I live with's dad had a special tool to get it bent back to place and measure it perfectly. So i took it out and it runs really well aside from when its in idle. it has a random stutter still but its perfectly drivable. letting it cool down then ill pull the other side and make sure that side doesn't have the same.