Saturday Night, left Trump Hotel around 1130pm to drive back to Brooklyn. Outside Temp 8F.

Turned car on - turned heat on full blast via the Defroster.

Drove right away as I would on any given day.

10 minutes into the drive, my friends and I commented that the heat was not at all on and the air coming from the vents was no different than the 8F temp outside.

The heated Steering wheel was not getting hot.

The heated Seats were perfect.

I continued to drive but turned the climate control OFF - because NO AIR was felt to be better than ICE air.

10 minutes later, on the West Side Highway, my engine temp went up to 260F, the engine or sounds from the engine bay were clearly louder than normal and the RED light came on to pull over.

I did so - and turned the engine off.

5 Minutes later, I turned the engine on - and the temperature was still 260F and advised me to turn the car off.

I hit the Wrench Button and spoke with a tech on MBrace. He mentioned to me that it's possible I did not give the car time to warm up and just had the car work on full effort right away in extreme cold conditions. They suggested two options.

1) Leave the car off for 20 minutes. Let the engine cool down. Restart Engine. See if the Temp is back to 190F / 200F. Drive off slowly - resume heat 10 minutes later. If Temp goes up - Pull over and go to option 2.

2) Have car towed and take a taxi home to brooklyn.

We went with Option 1 - and drove into Brooklyn - our breath fogged up all the windows - and then it froze over! We were able to wipe off sheets of frosted ice with a towel.

Heat turned on - no issue - temp remained at 200F = all fine.

Sunday I went to the car - engine says Low Coolant. I didn't drive it.

I drove the car this morning for 20 minutes. Heat works fine. Engine sounds fine. Temperature was fine. Low Coolant warning remained.

Mercedes stands by that I must bring it in and use only Mercedes Coolant.

They will not budge on that.

I've read there are alternatives and that Mercedes just won't agree to that.

What say you all?

 

My first thought was this is BS to only use Mercedes Coolant
But then I found the attached article.


Hmm!

 

I'm no tech - does this mean there is a leak if I have low coolant?

Would filling to the top with this MB Coolant solve the issue? Or just take in and have it looked at.

 

I am no tech guy either but mechanically inclined.


Your system will need to be tested for a leak if your warning light came on saying low coolant. Clearly something is a miss if you have that warning light come on. I would think at a minimum you have a leak. At the very worst--don't want to scare you but an engine block crack. This would not be good and would require a motor replacement. But they will do a dye/pressure test--maybe the magic MB coolant functions as a dye (nice blue color?). Like I said I am very mechanically inclined but I am no MB Tech.

 

I'll call them now to set up appointment. Thanks for advice sir!

 

Sure

It is nice to give some "mechanical" advice this time of year since as a CPA with a law degree I am usually giving tax advice. Now I should go back to that tax stuff--got my car diversion for the day.

 

Pops is also a tax guy - busy season for you both!

 

The wrench button tech is talking BS. -13 Celsius is nothing close to extreme for a Mercedes or any car. -30 Celsius (-22 F) is cold but not extreme for a Mercedes engine. The car does not need any special attention at -8 F, not even at -22 F except from lubrication point of view a few seconds idling would not harm.

The car should have coolant from the factory and should stay liquid at -35 degrees Celsius at least (withstands still much lower temperature).

Sounds very much like frozen coolant, no water flow which means no heat from the HVAC (even if engine is hot) and engine overheating (most likely lost some coolant at that point). Perhaps the tech assumed this because in this case the coolant will gradually start flowing when engine heat warms up the radiator and everything near by.

I would let someone check the coolant freezing point if it is at the -40 degrees Celsius level. I cannot see how the coolant freezing point could have reached -8 F. Even if there had been a minor leak and the garage had added water instead of proper coolant mixture, the freezing point would not go that much up unless a really significant amount of coolant had been replaced with pure water.

Coolant leaks often happen at cold temperatures first if a rubber hose is not attached tight or so. Probably not the case here if low coolant appeared only after the engine got hot.

Continuing on correct coolant (50-50 mixture with pure water), I once asked for a litre of coolant from our MB dealer to be sure I got the correct product. They sold me a bottle of non-branded stuff. It is essential to have the correct type (as explained by the document on an earlier post above) and if one is not sure which type to use, better to purchase it from MB. If you know which type to use, it would be safe to fill up from a bottle that isn't genuine MB stuff.

 

Yesterday my car started showing a check coolant level message and I had it filled with Mercedes-Benz coolant, the tech said there's really no other choice when it comes to the proper coolant for our cars.