my 01 cl600 piece of S!$& car

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Dec 15, 2010 | 05:31 AM
  #1  
well were do i start,

i bought a 2001 cl600 about three years ago with only 30,000 miles on and now has about 68,000. In that short amount of time the car has literally fallen apart.
From the electrical to the mechanical the car is one of the worst designed vehicles i have ever seen. Mercedes benz should be personally sued for allow this vehicle to be made and sold to the public. Lets just say i have been to the dealer so many times that every one knows me by my name. If you are concidering in buying his vehicle and you are not looking to put massive amounts of money in repairs i urge you to forget it. its a nightmare and i dont wish it on anyone. i have been working on my car for months just so that i can get it to a working condition so that i can throw it off a cliff. When im talking bout repair cost im talking about 1000 of dollars. now that i have vented i hope some one can help me on my issues.

1. esp and bas are showing up on the screen. goes away and comes back.
2. a noise is coming from what i believe is the abc pump. when i gas it the rattling noise goes away. but at low rpm the noise is constant.
3. my radiator fans not working and the coolant warning is lighting up.
4. theres oil in my intake and car is smoking from the exhaust.
5. my left park light is not working, nor is the marker light.
6. the light in the car are flickering
7. trunks not working.doesnt open.
8.the abs light is on.

if you guys can help with any of these that would be great
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Dec 15, 2010 | 08:20 AM
  #2  
With the bas , abs and esp light I would replace the brake switch @ the pedal, that should take care of that. marker lights problem could be the bulb sockets or it's connection.
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Dec 15, 2010 | 08:58 AM
  #3  
oil and smoke from exhaust could be valve cover gasket.
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Dec 15, 2010 | 03:14 PM
  #4  
okay first where is the brake switch located in the car, and how do i get to it.
second the smoke from the exhaust, what valve gasket are you talking about " the cyclder head gasket"?.Also i should let you know i found a lot of oil in the intake manifold and i mean a lot. like a half a cup full. I reduced the oil level of the car cuz it said it was to high and the oil seemed to reduce but still some in there what should i do.
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Dec 16, 2010 | 07:00 AM
  #5  
it doesn't sound like you have very much knowledge about cars. i think you are your own worst enemy. you need to find a qualified mechanic to take care of your car and you might start enjoying it a bit.
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Dec 16, 2010 | 02:24 PM
  #6  
The brake switch is located by the brake pedal under the dash.
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Dec 16, 2010 | 04:09 PM
  #7  
Quote: it doesn't sound like you have very much knowledge about cars. i think you are your own worst enemy. you need to find a qualified mechanic to take care of your car and you might start enjoying it a bit.
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Dec 18, 2010 | 01:53 AM
  #8  
i might not be a professional mechanic but when the head mechanic tells me its gonna cost $6000 for an oil leak and $1,200 for a diagnose the other problems and anywhere from $5000 to $10,000 to fix a car with only 65,000 miles on it, all i know is that should not happen. And that my friend is only the freaking begging of the problems. The car sinks on its own, steering wheel works one day and not the other, navigation is always messing up, and on top of that there is bunch of weird noise all around the car. And thats not just my car its all cl's cuz I have been reading these review from all over from different owners. just admit it buddy there a piece of s@3%. Dont get me wrong a new one with warranty would be great but after 50,000 miles the car is S%$#
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Dec 18, 2010 | 11:15 AM
  #9  
That many things wrong with it? From whom did you buy this vehicle, and are you familiar with the lemon laws in your state?

Once in a while you get a crummy car, no matter what brand. Maybe the day your car rolled off the assembly line, there was a terrible electrical storm that caused all the Stauebli robots to go berserk. There was an old joke about American branded cars that if you had a good car it must have been built on a Tuesday--Monday, everyone was still hung over from the weekend, Wednesday was union meeting night, Thursday everyone sat around planning to go on strike, and Friday everyone was already gearing up for the weekend. But realistically, stuff just happens.

My guess, and this is only a guess, that *other than the oil burning issue* you have very serious electrical gremlins. I have had cars like this, where you replace every single freakin' electrical component and sensor individually and it still doesn't work right. The solution that actually worked was to have a mechanic with some electrical engineering background rip out the entire electrical system and re-wire it in a more sensible configuration. The problem here is that you have a car with a lot of bells and whistles and computer to deal with, and all that stuff is not trivial to re-wire--this isn't a 1970s era BMC contraption, this is a lot more complicated and may not even be possible to re-wire.

The oil-burning thing is different. Could be head gasket, there were a lot of late 90s-early 2000s cars that all had bad head gaskets, from a lot of manufacturers. I sorta suspect that everyone was buying their head gaskets from the same gasket-die-cutter in MiddleofNowhere, Screwupistan--Subaru, Cadillac, Toyota, Land Rover all had head gasket recalls around that time.

Good luck
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Dec 18, 2010 | 04:39 PM
  #10  
Your issues with this car are not the car's or MB's fault. I think the problem is with the owner and the poor if any service he has given to this vehicle. There seems to be no or minimal preventative maintenence and the owner is not up to the task of even making a decision as to where to take it for service. Think he should be driving a Ford or a Chevy.
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Dec 20, 2010 | 03:16 PM
  #11  
Supporting the OP's opinion, this engine has a bad reputation in my crowd. It has, for example, separate controllers for each side of the engine; if they should disagree on something like the mixture the engine either hits limp mode or serious damage ensues.
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Dec 20, 2010 | 03:52 PM
  #12  
Quote: Supporting the OP's opinion, this engine has a bad reputation in my crowd. It has, for example, separate controllers for each side of the engine; if they should disagree on something like the mixture the engine either hits limp mode or serious damage ensues.
Could be but all the more reason to perform all the required maint at a dealers. In addition the problems he mentions are not the engine problem that you talk about. The problem here is this guy is over his head financially and cannot or will not spend what it takes to maintain this car.
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Dec 20, 2010 | 05:42 PM
  #13  
Time to buy a new car. This car requires a lot of money I call these cars money pits. I love the car and body style it's one of my favorites, but I cannot afford to maintain a car like this. You will not be able to fix this car yourself it needs to be repaired at a dealer or you might end up with even more problems. These cars have a lot of known high dollar issues I am sure there are other issues with the vehicle that are not even on that list.
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