quadcam

Thank you for your input. I just posed that question to the service manager. Seems logical to me and a heck of a lot cheaper I'm sure.

JohnLane

OP it is painfully obvious that MB is directing the dealer to fire the parts cannon at it. At your expense. ONE injector per bank of cylinders? Those intake manifolds don’t just jump out of there. When replacing one injector or one on each bank of cylinders.... replace all eight and know they are ALL healthy and happy.
Fuel rails don’t have any moving parts and only deliver high pressure fuel to injectors. They do NOT plug up. They work or they leak fuel.
Fuel pressure is easily measured. By Xentry using pressure sensors and I just bet we are able to attach a gauge somewhere to verify.
This is not rocket science.

quadcam

Thank you for your reply. It's really a hostage situation at this point. I live in a fairly rural area and there is no indy Mercedes option. There is this dealer about 40 miles away so that's where I went with a check engine light/misfire under heavy throttle. So they've replaced a boatload of parts and each time same problem. It's been there for 2 1/2 months now. The latest is Germany wants them to replace the two fuel pumps. Another $3500 or so. I asked the Service Manager if they had done testing of the existing fuel pumps with the Xentry tool. He said they did that early on in the saga and they were fine. So, I ask the obvious question --- does Germany know that??? Yes, he says they have all the readings. WTF right? I say, can you ask them why we are doing this then? I mean, we already did the ECU which was fine, the fuel rails which were fine, the Coils which were fine ( but Mercedes said newer type are now available which are current spec and must be put in to be able to properly test ), dumped my gas for fresh which was not the issue.... He says, ( this is verbatim text ), "we are not to question the AMG engineers decisions". Huh? What if it was his money getting spent like water? So the two pumps are to arrive tomorrow and in they will go. Will this nightmare end then? Doesn't seem likely does it? Maybe some magic will happen finally. I'm supposed to be a thousand miles away now in that car, and this started before Halloween, Thanksgiving and maybe I get it back before Christmas. Gift giving is going to be a bit tighter this year because the money is going to Mercedes and the dealer! We are up to 13 grand so far.... Outrageous. The Mercedes North America Executive Support lady who is handling my "case", says they will cover up to $1000 bucks. The dealer says they will match that, so at least there is that.

superpop

I would go and talk to the GM of the dealership and explain your frustration. You are paying them to diagnose and fix the problem. So far they have not done that, they have simply replaced a bunch of perfectly good parts. On a car with 20K miles on the clock. disgraceful to say the least. Despite what some people say, the M177 motor has been fairly reliable for Mercedes and is still in production today, 8 years after being introduced. There have been some random issues with the RMS due to a clogging crankcase venting system but those don't seem to be widespread. This sounds more like an ignition or sensor issue. Regardless, I would tell the GM that you are fine paying for the primary diagnosis and parts to fix the issue but it is completely unacceptable to just keep throwing parts at the car and saying a prayer. Is the tech working on the car an AMG certified tech?

quadcam

Thanks Pop, I've done that with the GM. He feels my pain. LOL. I'm assuming the fellow working on is certified as he is the Foreman in the shop, but I haven't asked that question specifically. The issue is figuring out what the diagnosis is -- and telling them what you are willing to pay for is a one way trip to getting your car back with the same problem you went in with. The GM's perspective is that he is unhappy to be without their loaner for all this time. He does acknowledge that my situation is bad, but his discussions with the Mercedes Rep that handles their store hasn't yielded anything more than what I've gotten, and I started a case with the HQ folks at Mercedes early on in this nightmare. I agree 100% that this is BS, and it isn't my first rodeo dealing with intractable service issues. Ever gone into battle with an insurance company and won? That will battle harden you. No, this is another beast entirely. When you come in with no warranty they tell you upfront that you will be paying to sort it out. Even that seemed off to me frankly. Other cars I've owned, you take it in and they figure out what's wrong and give you an estimate to fix it. Not with this S63. The funny thing is I thought the damn CES was the magic window they could hook up to to be told precisely what needed to be done. Wrong. My last communication with the GM surrounded trading it in on a new one. He wrote back that they have none -- I guess they stopped making them for a year and the 24's aren't available yet. Even if they had one and I was willing to take out a mortgage to pay for it, he says it's hard to put a price on mine since it is a branded title, and further introduced the concept of "if" they can fix it! Imagine that. If? At this stage?? They went through the laundry list Mercedes AMG requires before Germany gets directly involved over a month ago. Electrical, Fuel, Smoke Test and so forth, all on my nickel. The Service Manager proudly told me they got a 10 out of 10 from Germany for their thoroughness before asking for help. I give the whole bunch of them a 1 out of 10 for stranding me this long for this much money while my beautiful car sits out in a parking lot like an abandoned car. I guess my point is, going the outraged route and telling them what you will and won't accept is kind of like telling the guy who just pulled a gun on you what will be acceptable to resolve the issue. They insisted I pay them 5 grand several days ago to continue the dance which I paid with my Amex card.

chassis

Search this site. The information is free to be accessed. Read all AMG63 sections for the latest platforms.

quadcam

71 days at the dealer on my 2018 S63 with 20,000 miles. They replaced the fuel rails last week per AMG in Germany for my car. Did nothing to fix the Check Engine Light and Misfire issues. Next they said to replace the fuel pumps which were done today -- no change. They say I have to pay for these parts they keep trying that do not fix the problem. Two weeks ago they said it would be the ECU -- they replaced that but mine was fine. What the hell is the deal with Mercedes? Attorney General is my next stop. This is insane. They don't know how to fix the cars they build.

superpop

Welp, sounds like they have replaced the entire fuel delivery system at this point. I just cannot believe they have replaced all of these perfectly good parts. Has to be an ignition, sensor or timing issue. Has the car ever overheated bad? I assume they checked the fuel filters as well.

quadcam

Hi Pops, never overheated for me. Plugs have all been replaced and the coils. What part could they suggest now? Any guesses? I agree this is an unbelievable slog. You would think everyone associated at Mercedes with this debacle should be ashamed. I'm hopeful when they finally fix the damn thing someone at some level there will do the right thing by me because I will not throw in the towel. I will get an attorney or go to the State Attorney General if I have to, but they have to fix it. Stay tuned...

carlosinseattle

Sorry your options are limited because you live in a rural area with limited access to MB dealers. Your best option might be to pull the car and get it to a quality independent shop somewhere, even if that means paying $1-$2K on paying for it to be shipped on a flatbed tow truck. I have no idea where you are but if there's a major metropolitan city within 100 miles it might be worth your time and money to make some phone calls to so independent shops in the big city. That sounds extreme, but $15K spent without a fix is even more extreme.

carlosinseattle

I have read them threads/sections, which is why I wonder what you see that I don't. The RMS issue was definitely a real problem in the first 3 production years of the M177 4.0 TTV8 (2016-2018), primarily in the E63's. That seems to have been remedied. And the initial driveability problems were normally dealt with within the first year of ownership; seems like 2018 was the last year of that. Wasn't that fixed by a firmware update to the ECU? I'm trying to see what is presently so bad. And I've only seen one instance of cylinder wall scoring, and that was on the 4.7 liter S550 motor, so I'm sure I'm missing something that you've seen. I've also heard someone mention something about head bolts on the 2018 S63 but I haven't found that thread here or on Benzworld.

superpop

This just really smells like technician inexperience or incompetence. To have so many parts thrown at the problem with no positive indicator that the part would indeed fix the diagnosed problem is stunning. This motor has been around long enough and this platform has been around long enough that a savvy tech should be able to narrow down the problem with not nearly this much guesswork. I get that these are highly complex cars but they also have nannies that monitor just about every aspect of the motor and its proper function along with some level of supervision of the sensors that control the motor. Have they checked and validated all ground points on the car?

chassis

Please keep doing the homework. There are recent 4.0TT scoring threads. 463A and W213 owners are reporting vapor separator and RMS failures. Please do the work.

superpop

Carlos, there are threads in the E63 and C63 AMG areas of the forums that Chassis is referring too.

quadcam

I agree that it seems nuts that they can't figure it out. That said, we are not dealing with "some tech" at this stage. This is all being run by the AMG folks in Germany every step of the way! That's why I am inclined not to pull the plug on it now. They need sort out the problem, and I will deal with the outrage of cost and replacing perfectly good parts later. The Coils, ECU, Fuel Rails and Pumps are all specifically called for by AMG in Germany. That's what they have told the Dealer to do. All have been done to no avail. We are now awaiting their next step...
Who knows these engines better than the AMG factory guys that design, engineer, and build them?

carlosinseattle

I've found 4 or 5 cars with premature RMS problems on the E63 area, plus a couple more S63's but I've never looked at the C63 area - I'll check it out. And the only cylinder scoring I saw was on the M278 engine, and that was only once with a lower mileage/age vehicle, didn't consider the car with 170K miles on the odometer. Again, only looked at E63/S63 and W222 areas. I bookmarked every thread I came across that talked about problems that seemed like manufacturing defects, or shouldn't have happened with low mileage and/or age of vehicle.

blackbullit

I recommend having them check the motor and transmission mounts. I had these issues with my M176 engine, resolved by replacing the failed mounts, after all these other avenues failed to address the problem.

kafklatsch

I'm going a different route here.
I had two examples of extreme rip-off by MB dealers in my history of MB ownership

... the NON-AMG car issue was the dealer giving me an option on then a 5 year old W124 option (1) replace the entire transmission, or (2) have all of the internal parts placed in a new housing - why? I had a drip of transmission fluid. I ended up needing a $6 O-ring on some type of governor... I found this out by contacting an independent - he suggested that that was the problem and told me how to check it.....

The other issue was more severe, on my long gone S55 AMG (w220), I was away on business for 4 months... car dead when I returned... had to jump start and use good old jumper cables... I blew something.... towed to the dealer... they literally dismantled the car including removing the interior, trunk components, seats and all... looking for "the issue". eventually charging MB $22,000 in warrantied repairs. I was sick at the site of seeing a (back then) $135,000 pristine AMG dismantled and sitting for 3 months....I NEVER believed it was necessary.... A YEAR LATER, I got a letter from MB stating that the work was not done properly (they literally robbed MB it seems). I was given a certificate for a few thousand dollars (dont remember amount) to be used at the dealership. of course I never went there again and the cert expired.... but in my case MB itself was taken for a ride...

I BELIEVE you are being fleeced... but the is only my opinion... good luck.

quadcam

Good morning everyone. Still at the dealer after Germany said to do PICO Test on 5 of the cylinders which has now been done. That was an odd one I thought since they previously did compression testing and leakdown testing and all was fine. They wanted the PICO test to be done at idle and then half throttle and at full load. While that was in progress Germany sent another message to the Service Dept to do Borescope on the CATS. Did that and sent off the results to Germany. They came back and said to do back pressure testing on the CATS while driving. They did that yesterday and guess what -- the first time any of the myriad of tests done in almost 3 months and thousands of dollars of labor and parts, the result was failure. Came in as "above spec", presumably meaning clogged or restricted airflow. Hmmm. Might that be causing the CEL and misfires? If so, might this whole nightmare and most of the cost be erased by the 8/80 emissions warranty which my car would still be under? It is a 2018 S63 with 20,000 miles. Stay tuned. Would love to get it back by Xmas and would be a great gift to be told the whole mess is somehow related to the CATS and covered by MB. Maybe a pipe dream but miracles happen.

superpop

If it turns out to be clogged cats I would think that would be covered under the emissions warranty. If that is the case I would insist on a massive credit for the other perfectly good parts they replaced because they clearly did not know how to correctly diagnose the problem. Not sure what would cause cats to clog at 20K miles though.

quadcam

Agree, but we are not out of the woods until they say what to do next, do it ( presumably replace cats ), then determine "adaptation values" to assess if the problem will recur with the Cats. How they could go bad or whatever is the issue with them with such low mileage of 20K is odd. Maybe they were defective from the get-go for some reason? The Svc Mgr at the dealer says that Germany escalated the whole mess to an FTS yesterday which is Field Tech Specialist. Wonder who has been handling the case up till now, an intern? Oh boy. Five days till xmas which would be three "holidays" since I've seen my car -- I count halloween. It went in the day before the war in Israel started, 10/6/23. Meanwhile I hit the Powerball three times last week. Sadly it was just the powerball and no other numbers. 12 bucks. I need at least 15 grand to pay for this disaster unless MB says it was all caused by cats and they will cover it. Of course, one can imagine the dealer saying they want their money for parts and labor expended before they or Germany thought to examine the cats in the first place. That's the rub, when that damn light comes on and the misfires with it, how does anyone know where to start looking? If it is the cats, as the car owner, your perspective is to ask why they didn't go there first and not start with everything else they did. The casual replacing of parts is what gives you heartburn. Coils, Plugs, Fuel Rails, Fuel Pumps, ECU, and so on. I've been reading the boards and must say, clogged cats is rarely mentioned by all the folks that have had issues like mine with this engine and vintage -- 2018 S63. I think it was built at the end of 2017, but don't know for sure because I don't have the car to look right now. At this point I'm hoping it is the cats. Funny thing is I bought the Renntech Exhaust Valve Module last summer and hadn't gotten around to putting it in before this mess started. I can only imagine how that would have complicated my situation if I had! As it is, the car is 100% stock.

carlosinseattle

Pretty much all the sensors are designed to monitor electronics and moving parts. There no way to monitor a static part. Having said that; they should have realized what they were seeing as a back pressure issue somewhere along the way. As far as why the cats went bad, there are a number of things that could cause that. I'm not a licensed mechanic but I know that prolonged expsoure to bad gasoline or bad A/F mixture can cause cats to go bad. Since your car was bought back by MB as a lemon once before it will be interesting to see how it's handled.

superpop

A few more thoughts, I am really surprised the O2 sensors did not pick this up as I assume you would have had odd readings with a clogged exhaust. Wonder if one or more fuel injectors dumped a bunch of extra fuel into the motor and clogged the cats that way. I think you would have a lot of gas in the oil though as well if that was the case for any period of time and also a serious risk of hydrolock if the injectors were malfunctioning to an open position prior to start up. Cats almost never clog unless they get too much fuel dumped into them, or oil or water from the motor.

carlosinseattle

The line about accelerating hard was a clue to some sort of exhaust restriction. I didn't understand what the OP meant about "then you wish you had a different car..."

quadcam

Tongue in cheek about not liking how it was running ( different car wish ). Most of the folks who have had these issues talk about issues under load --- CEL comes on and misfires. Reason appear to be all over the map or unknown -- as is still the case with mine. After replacing every part under the sun, they have not yet said to replace the cats. Might that be because they are definitely covered by warranty and cost around 9 grand to replace? Stay tuned...