jvfante

2016 C300 base, 42k. I changed the engine air filter today which involved some disassembly/reassembly of the air box and the air intake tube. Afterwards, the car starts normally and runs smoothly but only idles and moves very slowly in either D or R. There is very little power and it can't make it up more than a very slight grade. In neutral it will barely rev to 2k. There are no OBD codes and until my filter swap, it ran perfectly.

I've checked the wiring on the rear of the airbox it all seemed intact. I didn't have to remove any of it to change the filter.

Any thoughts on what to look for? Thank you!

dwpc

I'd look for a disconnected vacuum hose in the area of the air box.

stockbmw

Double check on MAF sensor. If this is defective or busted, your car goes into limp mode as you are experiencing.

jvfante

First off, thanks for the replies from DWPC and StockBmw, I did solve my problem when I realized what I had done wrong.

This all started with a simple oil change and Air Filter change. When I got into the air filter, it seemed sensible to be extra careful when blowing out all the debris from the Air Box, so I put a rag in the intake pipe. The only problem was, I forgot to take it out.

Luckily, when I first started up the car, the rag was "only" sucked into the intake pipe and didn't reach the turbo. Hence the lack of any power to the engine. In earlier Benz's and other cars I've had (CLK, Boxster, BMW etc) the air pipe is a mix of rubber connectors and plastic pipes. The W205 is all solid plastic piping which is not that easy to take apart without breaking something. So, I pulled out my USB sewer camera and fairly easily fished it down the air pipe from the Air box and indeed saw the rag. Getting it out was another story. It was past two 90 degree bends. So, figuring it was worth a try, I taped a flexible grabber to the camera but due to the two bends, It took some luck and patience to grab the rag and pull it out.

With dealer and indie shops shamelessly charging $150-160 an hour here, there's a lot of motivation to come up with a DIY solution whenever possible.

Thanks again to the responses and to the MBWorld.org Forum. I like to tinker, but I can't tell you how many times I've relied on this forum and others to find a solution.

Here's where the rag was stuck. '16 C300 W205 4cyl Turbo.

Success at last.

Whatever works.

stockbmw

Good you got it out before it doing some serious damage.

Ron P Baker

Yikes!

fbsdmd

You are a champ!

jvfante

This forum's members are a great resource that I've appreciated for many years and through numerous cars, both owned by me and my friends.

On this latest adventure, I was just plain lucky I didn't, as some have accurately suggested, kill the turbo.

I sure wasn't looking forward to calling a tow truck and watching countless Benjamins disappear at the dealer over such a dumb move on my part.

GreekUPS

Great story, glad it worked out.

Mikey53

I hope you aren’t a surgeon! Lol

fbsdmd

Or a proctologist.

jvfante

Thankfully, I'm not in the medical profession.

benzdude