kimberlyboone30

I'm a country girl who has forever and a day lived in the world of big trucks. Rapidly unforseen events currently placed me into an '06 E350. I was against purchasing it in the beginning because it was just weird driving a "luxury gocart" as I have refered to it often but once I got out on the open highway I started to fall in love. I have had the vehicle for 6mos now and everything was running good/smooth until the other day. Like a flip of the switch the car just started this annoying vibration when over 40mph. Also the remote "all windows down/up" feature has completely stopped working. And at startup it makes a seemingly loud noise with one or two faint pop sounds and then quiets down. Is this the sign of a horrid train wreck approaching or are these things that are worth the time and money to fix? Any advice or suggestions would be much appreciated.

boardboy330

Without hearing what the mileage or other symptoms are - the vibration is likely as little as a bad alignment or as bad as bad ball joints. The ball joints are replaceable at 75K miles. I got 115K on mine before they went. I have a similar issue where at 40 it's got a slight vibration but north of 60-130mph it's steady. You could have also lost a wheel weight or be out of alignment.

Not sure about window features as I don't have that.

As far as the faint popping...not sure. Could be time for an oil change and your popping is a valve tap upon startup. If you haven't done it...an oil change takes 30 minutes and costs around $75 for DIY.

Plutoe

I think I am going to collect all the "lap of luxury" stories told on the MB forums that went south because the owners of the very used MB's just can't believe that loads of money have to be poured into their new to them MB's.

Another thing that you will learn is rather than posting an opus, post the problems separately and you will no doubt get better responses. In any event the three problems are:

vibration
a remote key fob feature does not function
popping sounds at start up

The vibration could be coming from loads of places,therefore I always suggest putting the car on a lift and trying to duplicate and locate he vibration---is it tires, drive train or mounts----yep it will cost some money

The loss of a convenience feature could simply be a bad key battery or someone was screwing around and changed the feature----read your manual!!

The startup popping sound sounds like an issue with the secondary air injection system. I think you are hearing the relay open and close----I would not worry about it until you get a CEL, because you will if the relay fails---then you will be forced to find a good local indy wrench, which I would start looking for now to get ahead of the curve, because I doubt you or your boyfriend will be willing to get under or over the car to fix things.

A word of caution----read the manual and follow the maintenance program, with prescribed oils and fluids-----stay away from BS Billy and their "Oh I can fix that" approach, else it will get expensive!!

apl175

The window convenience feature of the remote key fob only work over infrared. The key fob must be pointed directly at the black square on the driver's exterior door handle.

Barry45RPM

At a very close range... say 3 feet. And the receivers in the door handles have been known to fail, or work only in the garage but not outside.

kimberlyboone30

I have read the manuel and did not find the answer I was looking for. So far those are the only symptoms that have alerted me. This vehicle had only one owner before me and seemed to be in excellent condition. My mileage at purchase was around 89k and I'm now rounding 97k. I've had the oil changed and according to the schedule am not due for another 2k. I didn't think about the wheel weights so I will definitely check those in the am. I don't mind gettin my hands dirty seein as I used to work on my truck but I have zero knowledge of this vehicle so this time I thought I'd get some good advice from others and let the professionals handle it. ;-) Thanks for the help!
**read manuel again...thoroughly.....noted**