Friends, I am new to the forum but could use some advice. My 2008 ml63 has 112,000 miles on it. Has been running great with regular maintanence. Last week at freeway speeds the car suddenly lost power and glided to an exit. It ran only at low speed with the center panel lit up with a message about the ESP. Basically I was able to get to nearest parking lot with the engine revving on its own mind you revving constantly between 500 and 1000 rpms. Turned off car and called dealer who said fire it up and it should be fine. Sure enough started right up perfectly and off we went. It died in napa valley half hour later and was towed to dealership. Their response was:

"Here is what's going on with the car. I believe you may have two problems. I want to start with the less expensive repair first and drive the car.

1. there is a stored and current code for the accelerator pedal. Cost is 725.00 parts and labor. This the starting point. The pedal has a sensor and that will cause the ESP warning to come on too.

2. There is a stored code (not current) for the flap in the intake manifold. The flap for the intake manifold may be getting stuck from time to time, cost is
4392.48. After test drive we will see if this is necessary. "

After messing with stored code for accelerator pedal and finding that was not the solution,the car ran well and They let me take it out with caveat they don't know if its fixed...

"It is...It's complicated, but we think the connection to the fuel injection management system may have become loose. The codes are gone and it is running well. On Monday we are going to drive it on the fwy. I will speak with you on Monday after we drive it 20 minutes or more."

Drove it 200 miles south today and then back home where it lost power again one mile from home. same ESP warning. I stopped, turned and restarted the car and it got me home the last mile without incident.

Any ideas what might be causing this?

Thanks for your help in advance,

C

 

there are 2 throttle bodies in the inlet manifold and I have heard of an ML63 here in Australia that was shutting off randomly as one of them was partially stuck.

Maybe try source a used one complete with the throttle bodies?

There is also another 'flap' thats vacuum operated in the intake that adjusts the length of the runners. This can jam up as well.

 

sch - can these all just be serviced with a good carb cleaner? Or have to replace?

thx.

 

Usually replacement

 

Scary. Following this thread just in case.

 

Man that sounds like a headache. Dealers never know how to properly diagnose a car. They start throwing expensive parts at it hoping they fix the problem. I'm in Napa and there are few quality places around here but might be worth checking with another dealer if they can't figure it out. Not sure if you live in this area but Fairfeild is good and some like San Rafael dealerships.

Weird that no other codes came up. Might be worth looking into that accelerator code but getting it fixed at an independent shop to save some money.

One thing that really stood out for me in your post was 112,000 miles on your ML. I think that's awesome! Gives me some hope for higher mileage in mine (currently 67k).

I hope you figure out the problem. Please keep us posted. Good luck.