Geeman

Hello All,

I have just taken delivery of a black C250 CDi Blue Efficiency, lovely car - all going well, when I suffered loss of power and poor idling 1 WEEK after purchase. MB have told me that the injectors have melted!!!

Anyone experienced this? Apparently, 4 other carsa have come into the dealership today with exactly the same fault!

MB are looking into the issue and once I hear anything, I shall report back to you.

Gee

redbaron1973

Heard fo a few cases... though most are 220cdi BE. It is a know issue with the Delphi injectors and MB are resolving them under warranty. When was your car built as "new build" cars should be fixed already.

My own C250 is as yet unaffected but I hope it is new enough to miss the problem..

As I understand it there are very few unsold 220/250 units now and the remaining cars may have been built when there was an issue - most are highly specced (thus remaining unsold).

Have you had your car tuned at all? cheap "boost the fuel rail" boxes from ebay can make the problem come on sooner...

Carsy

Keep us informed of the outcome ,John

Diesel Benz

The issue should have concerned both the new 220 CDI and the 250 CDI engines. Perhaps you car is built after Delphi had the issue fixed (or before it appeared, I don't think the first 250 CDI engines suffered from the Delphi issue).

Geeman

Thanks for all of your input guys.

My car was built in July 2009, hence once of the early BE engines - I was told that anything post October 2009 build is okay???

MB dealer technician told me that the reason for the failure is due to an overvoltage applied to the injectors at startup, which has caused the injectors to overheat and sieze.

Solution is to obtain a injector pack (hence why C class UK models have been halted in production so far) to replace ALL the injectors, alonside a ECU reflash to correct the problem, and HOPEFULLY that will be it. It is a case by base basis with MB, and currently once they have identified the problem, it takes 7 days for the pack to get to the dealer - then it is a 4 hour fit process.

My dealer has done 7 cars now and all appears to be good. So fingers crossed, and let's see what happens.

Carsy

Thank you Geeman for the update. Enjoy your C 250. John

lawrence hagley

14 weeks old 4800 miles and broke down with injector problem. New Years Eve got it to the dealer who said they were closing in 10 minutes and had no spare cars !! Told to ring MB assist. Car collected and no replacement for 6 days !!!!! Now told 5/6 weeks as MB cannot cope with probklems. MB are going to recall all C220CDI & C250CDI

Not impressed with problems which MB new aboit before they sold me thecar !!! Should have kept my Range Rover Sprt. 2 yr's 40,000 miles and never missed a beat.

Will be seeing if I can get car sent back.

Carsy

Very frustrating for you & embarrassing for MB. My advice would be to go with the flow, relax & pick your new car up in 5 weeks .It is a great car & you will enjoy it in the long run.

It is difficult to understand how a brand damaging fault like this could get by the German engineers!!

What is your replacement car ?

Glyn M Ruck

Benz was let down by the OE injector supplier on this one but why it did not show up in endurance testing?? Who knows? These vehicles went through extensive testing right here in SA & Namibia

I stick to my maxim - never buy a new vehicle early in it's production phase. I don't care what the Brand. The more complex the vehicle the better the chance of teething problems. Compared with the 203 the 204 has been a surprisingly trouble free vehicle. No more computer simulated endurance testing - back to doing it the hard way on the road in real-world conditions. The 204 forum is testament to this. The things that people complain about are minor compared with the previous generation C & E Class.

vic viper

This is a major problem with the OM651 engine, we have had around 10 cases so far and more are still to come.

Unfortunately we have also seen a W212 with replaced injectors fail yet again :shock: ..

Feels like some people at Delphi are in serious trouble now

Glyn M Ruck

Time for a change in injector supplier!!

bk.968

German forums show rising numbers of threads on these OM651 injector problems. Seems like MB are still puzzling or short on supplying improved parts. Lots of cars get stored away for weeks, waiting for an injector replacement, while drivers get rental cars instead.

lawrence hagley

'Agree it is / was a great car. Great performance whilst returning 45mpg on long trips !!

MB supplied rental C180 Sport after 6 days, which drinks fuel at 21mpg during the recent bad weather and has not guts whatsover. Thought the handbrake was on the first time I drove it!!

Told MB that we are not paying monthly lease on a C250CDI Sport Estate Auto. when they replace it with a C180 Sport Saloon and uses twice the fuel. Said they have passed the e-mail onto the relevant dept !

Not impressed at all with lack of communication from MB when they know they have major problems with these models. Service said they had no real idea on when I would get car back. When pushed he could only suggest 5/6 weeks.

Glyn M Ruck

God - after the elastic band type torque that the 250CDI produces the C180 must feel like a gutless wonder. That torque soon becomes addictive.

Sorry you are having bad luck. Benz seem to have a real issue on their hands.

Glyn M Ruck

They have been in serious trouble for years. Another shockingly managed Corp like GM & of course an original GM spinoff. And I'll be damned if they don't appoint some ex GM management to the new board. A recipe for disaster.
As you know Delphi has recently come out of bankruptcy protection. Benz got tied up with them because of Chrysler. Time to get the Delphi crap out of their cars & go back to decent German designed Bosch or similar.

Geeman

Hi Lawrence,

Sorry to hear about your car and the trouble you have had. The trouble is, the dealers are having to work things on a case by case basis - they send off the details to MB Technical, who will then allocate a 'kit' to replace all the injectors. Mine took a week to sort out - after alot of pressure from me to the dealer saying I wanted to reject the car.

In the end, I decided that no matter how wonderful the car was, I did not want something that was not right from the start - therefore I did a deal with the dealer and ended up getting an E Class 350 CDi BE saloon sport for the same cost as my C250. I pick it up on Wednesday.

Keep up the pressure - go to the dealer and tell him about what you hav read on thsi forum, when they get people talking back to them with a technically sound argument, they start listening.

As for the Mercedes Mobilo - tell them you will find the equivalent car and hire it out and give them the bill and threaten to stop any lease payments you may have on the car until it is sorted out. It worked for me....

Gee.

RLE

I love this. Too many just roll over and accept any sort of story. We don't see those engines in the US yet but they will be in the C and E class cars when they are introduced later on this year. At a premium price, likely.

We are lucky to have an effective lemon law in my state and just mentioning it at a dealer puts them in panic mode.

kavehh

Happened to me on Friday, i consider myself quite lucky that it happened when i was driving only 40 mph, 5 min before i was doing 110.
It suddenly lost power and reduced the speed to 10-15.
I am not really sure what to do with it, the car has already had its injector replaced but i believe they come with 4 injectors and they didnt change all 4 when one of them got melted.
I love the car and i can refund the money but not sure what car should i go for instead.
Its not even a month that i got the car and it really put me off.

Should i give it another chance or i should go for for A4 ?

Carsy

Easy Kavehh, "I love the car" says it all. Have ALL the injectors changed & Bobs your Uncle.

PFJW

HMMM .... sorry to read about the 220/250 cdi Blue Efficiency problems!

I was about to upgrade my c class 220 cdi sport estate to the 250 model to gain better performance / mpg.

As it was ( hopefully still is ) the car running really well ( 08 plate with 31000miles ) I decided to look at a ECU upgrade. Still appears to be unknown territory to the lay driver. MB wanted £1600 for the Brabus plugin. So after a little research into the remapping v plugin debate I ended up with a Viezu V Switch plugin into the common rail system. At a discounted £350 because of an aborted attempt at remapping due to a non-Bosch ECU being fitted to my car not accepting a input update This ECU was was during a short manufacturing switch away from Bosch.

Nervous about reports of costly repairs and warranty issues if the engine was over loaded I went ahead. With an added Sprint Booster chip as well the 220cdi is a different car, all for the price of £750'ish including a throaty sports exhaust. The BHP is now appx 210 and with a hefty torque increase. Driven carefully normal day to day mpg around 47 and I have hit 60mpg on the motorway at a steady 60'ish.... just do not put your foot down!

Reading all the threads on the current problem you realize how sophisicated all this techie stuff is, engine management I mean. You kind of wait for the bang, but as yet........

Carsy

Good luck with the longevity of your engine. Impressive power & torque figures.

In my experience an under rated engine will last a lot longer. eg low speed diesel generator sets last decades. But it definitely will not be as much fun !!

dazzabigboy

Got my new C Class CDi 220 late December 09 and have been extremely happy with the car....I love it! Sadly last week I had a major loss of power and the engine light came on, late in the evening, so decided to drive to the local dealership 1st thing the next day. Where they promptly told me it was an injector failure and that its going to take 4-5 weeks....to be fair they were quite good with lending me a car for the day and now I have a Kompressor C Class Rental....but I am annoyed that Mercedes sold me the car clear in the knowledge it was going to suffer this major failure! I am unsure I want the car now so as its a company car I am instructing our company chairman to start a complaint regarding the issue...Sorry Mercedes but you can't do this to your buyers and expect us to wear it. Does anyone know if the repairs will last?

Geeman

Dazzabigboy,

I would not accept 4-5 weeks as a deadline. Get your dealer to stick his finger out and get it sorted - they are doing this on a case by case basis - ask to speak to the General Manager of the dealership - or the dealer principal - do the things I mentioned in my earlier post, and they willstart listening. Stop your lease payments on the grounds of a known fault not being rectified without failure, and pressure them.

In the end, they do replace all 4 injectors (some only do the faulty ones so check and make sure!) and the car is as food as new. The newer ones have been modified and I know of someone who has had the job done on his 250 and has done 9k miles without a hitch.

Alternately - chop it in, that's what I did get a discount on a new or upgraded car - I managed to get an E350 CDi and there are no problems on those injectors at all (they use the same ones!).

Above all else, don't give up and don't give in - it's a cracking car when it works!

dazzabigboy

After reading literally hundreds of posts regarding the injector issue, having experienced the issue myself and getting some great advice Geeman on this forum, On Wednesday I started complaining direct to my Dealership, Mercedes Hull that they had knowingly sold the car to me in December with the fault...although they have since replaced the injectors I am now longer willing to accept a repair as recompense for selling me a "Lemon".

The dealership got back to me 24hrs later with a "Mercedes UK are not willing to purchase the the vehicle back from me." response I am not going to settle for that!

Its disgusting that Mercedes knew about the fault with almost all 220 and 250 from September and still sold me the car in December!

I have had Audis, Land Rovers and VWs in the past and have never been treated by a dealership or a manufacturer like this (not even Land Rover!).

My point is if they had told me in December that there was a 4 in 5 chance of a major mechanical failure of this model I would have not purchased it!

Mercedes Benz UK and Mercedes Benz Hull....NOT GOOD ENOUGH! Poor service, Poor customer relations, Poor design!

dazzabigboy

I found this Facebook Group where you can document your problems.