At a dead end with my car and potential severe engine issues. Don’t know what to trust or think.







My family has a 2007 Mercedes E350 with 146000 miles on it. It’s been throwing a check engine with generic codes P0016 and P0017 now for thousands of miles. Why my parents chose to ignore it is beyond me but I can’t change that now. MB specific codes are 1200 and 1208, typically signaling the dreaded balance shaft sprocket gear failure, as I’m sure all of you know. I’m at a dead end regarding it, as I know some basic stuff and can follow instruction, but I’m not extremely mechanically inclined.

1200 miles ago, it was at a dealership for a slipping transmission. Along with the transmission inspection, they did a full borescope procedure by removing the valve cover to inspect the sprocket gear, along with checking the cam positions against their timing marks. Their findings were as follows.

“Check cam position timing and found within spec at this time, visually inspected camshaft solenoids, camshaft sensors, and connections, R&R front valve cover and inspected balance shaft front sprocket with a borescope, no visible damage found at this time”

This was a sigh of relief. It then had a transmission rebuild and went into another dealer following the rebuild for an oil change and brake fluid flush after it’d been sitting for a year. This occurred about 1 month ago. The car was driven 20 miles following Dealer 1’s report. At Dealer 2, they noticed the check engine light while doing the other work, and the service advisor said his tech “checked out the engine out of goodwill and it didn’t look good, and it is the balance shaft problem”. Whether or not he actually checked the cam positions, I don’t know. Dealer 2 warned me against driving the vehicle back to my parent’s home (a 1000 mile journey) but due to COVID 19 circumstances I had literally no choice. I took the risk and drove it back, and made it home safe.

After arriving back at my parents, we have barely used it and had it inspected at an independent shop in our area, After their diagnosis, they have the same conclusion as Dealer 2, saying it will need a balance shaft and timing chain replacement. I have attached all the findings and data the indy gave me. If you’re reading this, if you could look at the data and pictures of the timing marks, please let me know what you think of the whole situation, thanks! I just want to be sure it’s not just the camshaft adjuster magnets/solenoids alone or cam sensors or anything else before plunging into a $3200 repair.

 

After reading through the search results, apparently I am wrong. The various write-ups state that the codes you have can only occur with the balance shafts or crankshaft gear issues. Most of the responses are eight years old if that is something I dunno. Folks have posted their VIN to see if the vehicle falls into the group with balance shaft issues.

 

Yeah the first batch of 2007 models up to around September 2006 had the bad balance shaft. Post the vin so we can see the engine number to see if you're past it or not. Can't tell from the pictures if those are centered or not as you have them at an angle. Some of them look like they're centered and some of them don't. Some people have gotten lucky from changing the sensors. Some have continued to drive it with that error message and have done many miles with it, several thousand. Eventually it just won't start.

 

Thanks for the replies Wabbit and Alpha. My head is getting wrecked from this. Dealer 1 has said they may be willing to provide recourse provided it goes back into an MB dealer and they find that the shaft is worn or chain is stretched. The VIN is WDBUF56X57B085707

 

Your engine number is 272964 30 524152 which I believe is past the balance shaft issue. Still some people claim they still have issues, but it might not be the worn gear, but a stretched chain. Might be worth getting the new sensors, make sure they are MB parts and you can just buy them online from an MB vendor that sells discounted parts online.