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Ran into a problem this morning with my AMG. Car drove fine from class back home last night.I then moved my car at about 3:00am to another parking spot. As I wake up to leave out for class this morning, Car wont start! Car tries to crank, all headlights come on and dashboard lights, including radio but car just wont start. Fuel is good, Ive never had a Check engine light on.
I dont think it is a fuel pump because my car have never stalled out in the past ,no problems starting previously, no check engine light, no sudden loss of power while driving.
I dont think its a battery because everything else is functioning.
May be Starter?
May be Alternator?
May be CPS or fuse.....
I know one thing for sure, when i fix this car, im selling the car. I'll be graduating soon and currently in real estate where I prefer not to drive a AMG everyday to meet clients all over the area.
I just pray it's not the fuel pump. Any tell, tell signs?
Why? The fuel pump is really easy on these cars. Buy, borrow, steal a fuel pressure gauge and hook it up to the fuel rail. You should see 56psi when you turn the key to position 2.
Air, fuel, spark and compression is all that is needed to run. Air is normally a given, as is compression.
A good simple test is to squirt about a tablespoon of fuel into the throttle body. Crank the car and if it coughs a few times, then you are likely not getting fuel to the injectors.
Note it could be many other things, like a crank position sensor (CPS) that needs a replacement. Bad CPS would not give spark. These usually fail when warm and come back when cool. But you never know.
Why? The fuel pump is really easy on these cars. Buy, borrow, steal a fuel pressure gauge and hook it up to the fuel rail. You should see 56psi when you turn the key to position 2.
Paying for classes out of pocket this semester and $1000 + part is just not in my interest lol. A friend of mine said it could be fuel pump relay, but who knows. I feel it, it feels like the car is going to start and crank then you just get nothing. which is weird, though Im not a car tech to be diagnosing things.
I was thinking CPS as well? What would be the right way going about eliminating things, such as fuel pump, fuse, relay, battery ect.
I will have a friend come by later on today and run a compression test for me, hopefully that will tell me if its something with fuel pump or compression.
Are there any fuses or relays I can check by myself? without taking to dealer, or is this something they will have to hook up to STAR.
UPDATE: So i just went out to try to start the car, and to suprise to acted as if it wanted to start even more than before. It's cranking for sure, but after the first try it died back down again, meaning just like the spark wasnt as strong as before If that makes any sense lol.
Quick Question: If it is the fuel pump, does that mean i also have to replace the sending units as well. Ive been searching online for some but have notice that some fuel pump assempbly's come with sending unit and others does not.
Last edited by amgrobaspach; 02-14-2018 at 03:01 PM.
Get a syringe and squirt some fuel in the intake. See if it coughs when you crank it. I'm betting 10:1 it is the fuel not getting to the engine.
Once you know it is fuel you can work on fuse, relay or pump diagnostics. Keep asking questions so we can help.
Easy way to know if it is CPS - is to replace it with a known good Bosch part. Then keep a known good spare in the glove box for the next time it fails. Replace every 50K for good luck. My wife had one quit on her, which killed the engine, which freaked her out. I replaced it and all is well. But no way does she want that to happen again.
Don't bother with checking compression, unless you are curious. That is rarely the problem (like 1:100,000).
When the spark plug is out, ground the plug and check for spark. If you see spark, it is almost always NOT the problem.
Paying for classes out of pocket this semester and $1000 + part is just not in my interest lol. A friend of mine said it could be fuel pump relay, but who knows. I feel it, it feels like the car is going to start and crank then you just get nothing. which is weird, though Im not a car tech to be diagnosing things.
POWERCO High Performance Universal Gas Electric E8475M Fuel Pump Module Assembly for Mercedes-Benz W203 C203 CLK C CLASS
If it's trying at all, you probably don't have a failed CPS. It sounds like fuel pressure. Check the test port on the rail, push the valve in and you should get a solid spray of fuel. If not, then start with a pump.
Quick update: so I went out to start the car this morning around 8:00am and it acted as if it would start up again even more than before. I felt it trying to turn over about 5 Times repeatly on its own with just holding the key in the last position, any other time it just turns over once and gives out but this time was different.
Around 5:00pm my buddy showed up to take a look it and to surprise the car started up but I was holding the throttle down as well. It bugged then started.
I then let the car run for about 5min-10min because I was afraid if I turned it off, that it wouldn’t turn back on.
After about 10min of the car running I drove to a nearly gas station and put 3galons of gas in the car just Incase the fuel gauge needle wasn’t working properly. once I got back home and turned the car off, I then tried to start it up again to see if it would start. To surprise it cranked right up not 1 not 2 not 3 but about 5 Times perfect time wihhout even touching the throttle.
I still don’t know what hell it was and afraid it might happen again.
Is this a DIY or something that needs to be serviced at dealer.
You can DIY it, its external to the fuel tank accessible from underneath the car.
Originally Posted by amgrobaspach
Curious as to how you figure it was the pressure regulator and not the fuel pump?
Read this. http://thefabricatorseries.com/build...uel-pump-issue
Basically the W203 has a saddle tank (2 fuel tanks) and one fuel pump. The fuel return from the FPR/filter is used to siphon fuel from the driver's side to the passenger side where the fuel pump is. If the FPR fails the passenger side of the tank will run out of fuel when theres still plenty of fuel on the driver's side. The car has 2 fuel level senders (driver and passenger sides) and what you see on the fuel gauge is an average of the 2. On my car with an icarsoft i980 scanner I can see the individual signals from the passenger side and driver sides. When my fuel pump was failing one of the symptoms (besides loss of power) was that there was more fuel on the driver's side than the passenger side which should NEVER happen if the system is working correctly. If you've determined your fuel pump is healthy (56psi at the rail) the next step is the FPR/filter which is easy to replace with basic tools. If that doesn't do it then the next suspect is a blockage in the cross over pipe between the 2 sides like the article above.
Originally Posted by amgrobaspach
If the fuel pressure regulator is buillt inside the filter, then should I just buy the filter, or do I need the entire fuel pump assembly.
You just need the filter. I did the pump and filter for good measure at the same time but thats not necessary if your pump is healthy. I used Mahle KL82 on my C320. Should also work on the C32.
I had a similar problem happen to me. I changed the pump first, still had the problem. Your situation was the exact same as mine (search my previous threads to read through instead of me re-writing). In the end my problem was a melted prong on the fuel level sending unit which sends the power to pump. I had intermittent problems where it would not start and then all of a sudden it would start. I believe this is a common problem that people overlook by just replacing the fuel pump and level sending unit without looking at the actual connection prong. My reasoning for this is that I have read of others having a fire start or there seat being burned from underneath due to this same prong. Our pumps obviously draw too much power for the level sending unit connector.
Long story short, life up your back seat, take off your driver side fuel tank cover and pull off the larger connector. If your prongs are good keep investigating your fuel system because I do agree with previous viewpoints of your issue being very, very likely related to fuel.
Is this a DIY or something that needs to be serviced at dealer.
Curious as to how you figure it was the pressure regulator and not the fuel pump?
Silly question but do you often drive the car on 1/4 full gas tank or even near empty tank? I'm asking because 5 years ago my car had exact same issues of cranking and no start and NO CODES. my indy guy checked the fuel pump which he explained was working but the electrical connector had overheated and developed build up which prevented the current from being supplied. This happened over years since my wife would always drive with 1/4 tank or less of gas and the pump was overheating since it wasnt submerged in fuel (with 1/2 or full tank) which helps keep it cool actually (which i didnt know).
The fix was 2 hours of labor or like 225 bucks which is much better than buying the entire fuel tank/pump assembly which is the only way they sell it.
02-14-2018, 09:44 AM
My C32 Days are over.
