dlwm3

Mercedes C220 1995 (W202)

God I love my car ;-) But I am having some problems and before I take it in to the dealership once again and get charged an arm and a leg (broke man in love with a benz), I was hoping some of you educated and experienced fellows could help me out.

My car is almost on its 60,000km/37,000mile point. As you know, the car is to be serviced at this time. I am prepared to go in for the service as usual, it's just that some others problems are on the rise and I would prefer to walk in knowing a little bit before they upcharge me for everything.

CHECK ENGINE LIGHT ON - I have noticed lately that something seems awry with the fuel injection system. When I am driving and am about to come to a stop, I can feel the car still wanting to go a bit. So when I take my foot off the gas and brake to see what happens, sometimes the car will drive at around 5 - 10 kph (I live in Canada sorry ;-) without my foot being on the gas. Sometimes it will not do this but sometimes it will. It also seems like the car is not shifting properly. I don't know if this is the transmission or what. Sometimes it seems like it should shift and it does 5 or 6 seconds later.

SRS LIGHT ON - This light is remaining on longer than the manual stated 4 seconds. It eventually goes out but it does stay on longer than 4 seconds (2 minutes ???) Will this be expensive? Has anyone experienced this problem before?

FRONT RIGHT (or left) BRAKE MAKING LIGHT SQUEAKING SOUND - I was wondering if I could just have it lubed or something to stop this. It started two days ago.

RESIDUAL HEAT FAN SQUEAKING - There is an option in the car for RES. heat. When the car is off, you can press that button and get heat (I guess). I hear a squeaking sound when I press this button. A little squeaking sound but a squeaking sound nonetheless. Is there a direct place I can lube without get the expensive labour charge from the dealership?

GAS NODE/SENSOR WENT AWRY ONE DAY - One day when I filled the car up with gasoline I got back in the car and noticed that the gas hand was SLOWLY ascending rather than quickly going to "full tank". I watched it closely that day and the next but the next time I filled it with gas, there was no problem. It went straight to the top.

(Two weeks ago the light went out on my clock on the dash so I took it to the Mercedes dealership and they replaced all my dash bulbs for $200). Someone had once told me once they go inside your dash, the sensors never work the same. I don't know if there is any truth to this so I figured I would post it here to finally find out).


If anyone can help, I would appreciate it. Sorry to be so long but I figured I should tell as much as I can.

Take care and I will check back every 30 minutes ;-) I'm anxious.

Thank you,

Mike T.

Don't be sorry; it is a source of pride to be Canadian! Only weird countries use measurements based on the size of a medieval king's foot

About the check engine light, it could be the throttle position sensor is maladjusted or failing. I don't know if the C 220 has an electronic throttle (maybe not?). Could be that too. If it's a mechanical linkage, check the cable etc for freying/binding. As you mentioned later, it could aslo be something to do with the auto transmission. I'm afraid that this problem may be a tad expensive.



Does not sound good - possibly another expensive one. However, is not there some sort of government requirement that basic safety systems remain operational throughout a car's life? I know this to be true in terms of recalls - many have been made for seatbelt failures (most recently Toyota in the USA). Contact Transport Canada to see if they can help (maybe there's even a "silent" recall?).



Could be pads wearing out if the pad wear sensor has failed, or could be winter salt affecting the part of the caliper where the pads rest. I would check them and derust then lube pad/caliper contact area if necessary with never-seize.



Sounds like the little fan by the cabin temp sensor (the W203 and CL 203 have this) it's near the inner mirror mount. If you can live with this noise, do so, because it sounds like a hundred dollar + problem to address. If it's the regular blower fan, you could try removing it and cleaning the impeller (or does the W 202 have an air filter for the ventilation?).



Why kill a gnat with a sledgehammer? Unless the gauge fails completely or is patently unreliable, I'd leave this alone. It's something to deal with in a car still under warranty, not for an 8 year old one though.



Highway robbery. They were too embarrassed to charge $150 for one bulb so they made you feel better by doing all of them?!? I'll bet that it's a relatively easy job. Maybe you should spend $100 on the service manual for this car. That would save you a packet. It sounds like you're a wee bit on the frugal side, as am I. The manual would be your best friend.



Absolute rubbish! The person who told you that probably believes that Elvis is alive, yogic flying/levitation is real and Saddam Hussein is a space alien. There is no hocus-pocus inside a car. If they don't touch the wiring or gauges, any probems with them are coincidental. Having written that, if you take your car back, tell them the fuel gauge has been misbehaving ONLY since they changed all you light bulbs. They should feel guilty enough about the $200 to diagnose & fix any gas gauge problem for free It may be a loose ground, particularly if you have other odd symptoms in the instrument panel. Buy the manual.

Since the car is well beyond warranty, have you thought of taking it soewhere that charges less than a million dollars an hour? There must be some decent independent M-B garages in TO.

In any case, good luck and let us know how it goes...

tomkom1

Hi,

I have a C220 with 50,000 miles and I'm having the same problem with my GAS GAUGE. Its really screwy, going up and down then stays down. Did you ever have to get it fixed? Was it a big deal?

I also had the clock light go out? Could this just be a fuse or will this also cost me $200 for a 10 cent light bulb.

I bought the car and it did not have any documentation and I went to amazon to get a repair manual and there were none. Does anone know where to find a manual? Every time i take it in to the repair shop i don't get out without spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars. I can't take it to my old repair guy who I trust, because he works on everything except mercedes since they try to keep things exclusive.

For example, I had something lodged behind the ash tray and they wanted $250 dollars to replace it. After arguing with them they were able to fix it. Why can't you pull out the ashtray? German Engineering is not what it use to be, as it seems to suck now. They claim they are high quality, but my old honda, blows them out of the water in qulaity, reliability and most important maintenance up keep.

I like the interior and the ride, but it is a slow boat. I understand I bought the bottom of the line mainly due to what I thought was a great deal, but shouldn't all mercedes have enough to be able to change lanes when you want to. Needless to say this is my first and last mercedes.

Tom

Kamakazi

Tom,

My C220 has 350,000 miles and i have the 97 model! I've been all over the world with it and i'm so proud of what this car went through and how it never and i mean NEVER broke down with me! I'm not a mechanic but its so easy to work with this car, I don't even have the manual for it.

For the GAS GAUGE, its a very common problem with this car, I've had it for as long as i can remember! But if you just give it a minute everything will get back to normal, I mean worst case scinario you just turn off the car, close it, open it again and that resets the computer and everything will work fine again! At least this is how it worked with me.

As for the CLOCK LIGHT, it happened with me twice, once on the clock light and the other one on the miles meter. Its hillariously easy to replace these light bulbs. There are two ways actually, the first way is to force out the dashboard with a screw driver or a letter openner (I prefere the letter openner). Once you get the dashboard out, allign the steeing wheel in the middle to take out the dashboard out completely after removing the wireing in the middle from the back. You will find blue plastic **** that have the bulbs connected to them, remove whichever one that isn't working and replace it, in my case, I didn't have ESP on my car so i replaced it with my ESP light since my car didn't have it in the first place.
The second way to do this is a bit more difficult but if this is your first time, you would feel more confident implementing it. The tools you need are simple one cross screw driver. There is a plastic cover underneeth your steering wheel that covers all the wiring till the pedals. Remove the screwes from there and make sure you remove the one behind the emergency brake handle and another one behind the red hood popper. After removing these screws, that plastic cover should fall down from the top only. Then you can insert your hand to push out the dashboard and allign the steeing wheel strait so you can completely remove the dashboard ect...

As for the ASH TRAY, that could be esily removed as well. I don't know what model you have and how exactly is the inerior of your car, but in my car i just force remove the small box over the ashtray and i can play all i want behind the panel

About the cars performance, there were many times where i wished i had a more powerfull engine, don;t forget its not a light car like most Hondas and Toyotas. Its heavy and its a MERC, i'm not going to call it German because i'm not too happy with VW and BMW's!! But there are several ways you can improve performance from time to time by for example cleaning your radiators. I do this yearly before every summer and you can't imagine how much crap there would be stuck between the aircondition radiator and the engines radiator. I honestly unclip the clipses on top of the radiators and disconnect the aircondition radiator fan as well as the engines and i use toilet cleaning equipment and it shines like new!

I suggest you reconsider what you said about this is the first and last time you will buy a Mercedes, because simply its unlike any other and the ride doesn't differ one bit from a C class to an S class! I just love all Mercs and believe that they are the best cars ever made.

If you need any other help regarding your car, just let me know and remember i'm not a mechanic, i just love my car.

My regards,

Kamakazi

shandy2550

SRS light on ; when the SRS light stays on for 2 mins after switching on the ignition it means that there is a non-critical fault in the SRS system but that it will still function normally.Have the codes read and the faults cleared.
To remove the instrument panel use the proper tools or push out from the back, any other way you can crack the panel and it then becomes expensive.
See here ;.http://202tech.mkosonen.com/howtos.html .
Cheers, Geo.