Hey everyone,

My dear 400E is giving me problems again, but this problem has been going on for the last few years. Whenever its hot outside, the car refuses to start. It seems like the engine is flooded. Today it was about 85 in Cleveland and the car had the usual difficulty starting, after about 10 min, I managed to get it start. However the problem today is the car stalled while I was driving. The revs just dropped and that was it. Any ideas on what's wrong? The car has about 170K miles on it and I'm pretty good with getting it serviced on time.

Thanks

 

The idea of a flooded engine seems quite right to me. There is a so called cold start valve (electric), which enriches the mixture for cold starts only. In case the valve stays open or just leaks, can lead to the "flooding" and rough idle or stall. Another case maybe that the injectors leak which also enriches the mixture. And there is one more element in the intake controls, which I dont know the English word for. It's some kind of a temperature compensation, which prevents somehow that the hot fuel is "boiling" and causes the irregular idle etc.

I'm living in Germany and I'm jealous that you guys have 85 degrees. Here the days temp. is about 64 and nights are still close to freezing. :-(
I miss the years I once lived in Cincinnati.