ooisper

Since the W211 E320 is pretty similar internally to the W210 E320, I thought I would post this here as well. I know us guys don’t like to read long and elaborate write ups, so I’ll try to keep mine short and concise:

Car: 2004 E320 Sport with 103,000 miles

Symptoms: vibration and excessive engine noise during takeoff from stop position; more apparent when engine was under load, eg. going uphill. This happened only during takeoff (either soft or hard acceleration) from a stop when the car/engine was cold. Vibration and noise would subside as car picked up speed, and were gone after car shifted into 2nd or 3rd gear or about 5-10 minutes of driving.

Vibration was felt through the floorboard and felt like it came from engine or transmission. Not shuttering but vibration like you would feel from a massage chair. Excessive noise sounded like if engine was under heavy load – a dry groaning or grinding noise. I just bought the car so I don’t know how long it has been like this or if it has gotten worse over time.

Diagnosis so far: Engine idles fine and everything felt normal after car was moving above 10-15 mph; no vibration or excessive engine noise even up to 70-80 mph. Many discussions on here and on other forums suggest bad engine mounts as the culprit. The mounts were never changed on car according to service records.

Confirmation from anyone with previous experience of similar symptoms will be much appreciated!

desired_speeds

check your flex discs and engine/trans mounts. Mounts on these cars aren't the most durable. They're great when they're new, but degrade very quickly over time.

ooisper

Thanks for the input. Yep, got the flex disks on the check list too.

Anyone else can confirm that the above symptoms sound like a engine-mounts issue?

ooisper

New engine mounts and transmission mount fixed all the noise and vibration. Old tranny mount completely collapsed and caused about 70% of the noise and 90% of the vibration experienced initially.

B189s

I agree, I just installed all the new mounts and all the problems were gone