fatt-dad

Hi all! My wagon has 325,000 miles and I love it! Had it for many years too!

A few days ago, I drove just fine out to lunch - usual routine. When lunch was over, I drove back to the office and really lost acceleration! I mean I thought the motor conked out! Foot on the gas - but nothing. Heck, if I had a carburetor, I'da blamed the accelerator pump! Now, I say, "Nothing" but the motor kept running and I got up to highway speeds, but it was zero to 60 in minutes! (the gears did shift during all this slow acceleration; however.)

I have other gremlins, but this is something else. Any clues?

f-d

edit to add, this problem is fleeting. Seems to initiate, but on restart (or the next trip after cooldown) I'm back to good.

bbirdwell

Unless you want to just throw parts and money and time at your car, put it on a proper diagnostic system and you'll have the answer in five minutes. A standard OBD2 code reader that reads Mercedes codes (not all do) can interrogate the ECU but be advised the W210 OBD2 port only connects to the ECU, it does not connect to the other modules in the car (TCU, SRS, etc). You have to use the 38-pin connector under the hood and a DAS setup to interrogate all modules.

ecmexchange

Seconded. Doing it right the first time will save a lot of money and time in the future.

Eurow

Under the hood, where the throttle cable attaches to the actuator, open it all the way by hand and let that actuator snap shut about 5 times.

fatt-dad

to continue. . .

Yesterday my gremlin reappeared. I pulled to the side of the city street and restarted the motor. All symptoms went away. I also did the snap trick under the hood. We'll see. . .

Love my wagon! Not a fan of mystery; however. . .

f-d

kajtek1

It is not mystery. It is lack of using glasses or OBD scanner.
The car will tell you what hurts it with pretty good accuracy.
When one of my cars has trouble, I drive with Bluetooth scanner plug in it permanently.

bbirdwell

+1 on what Krzysztof said. If you hooked it up to DAS, a "quick test" that takes 3 minutes will point you right at the failing part. Look for "stored" code if the car is running correctly at the moment; look for "current" code if the car is displaying the same failure mode right then. Spend the money to troubleshoot now rather than waiting for it to fail at a most inopportune time that endangers yourself and others.

In this case, since it most likely involves the ECU, an OBD2 scanner that reads MB codes would most likely do the trick. If it is a transmission issue, you're going to have to use DAS.

kajtek1

The $5 TorquePro reads MB codes that are not even listed on this forum. I have DPF code coming back and trying to figure out if that is the result of bad sensors.
Not just the code, but I can read about 100 live data with it as well. Not sure how accurate it is, but heck for $10 for adapter and $5 for software I don't complain.