Bert whitaker

A friend has a 2007 C230 with 96,000 miles on it. I'm thinking of buying it after he lets his son use it for another year. I have a couple of questions though, which I will try to make brief and not belabor things. I understand that there is a lot of carbon buildup in the intake manifold because of PCV and EGR gas mixing before the injectors, build up that can start to obstruct the movement of the swirl flaps, sometimes causing breakage of the actuator rod.



1) is there a way of checking the movement of these swirl flaps by reaching under the hood while the car is off and moving that actuator rod to see if it moves freely? Or do I have to have it running and rev it a little bit well I watch whether the lever turns the cam?



2) is there a way of avoiding this carbon buildup through the use of top tier fuels or regular carburetor cleaner spray every couple of months or is it just unavoidable?



3) if the actuator rod ends up eventually or is already broken, I think the only thing I can do is replace the Armature with a new metal one and try to clean the intake manifold. Is that ridiculous compared to just buying a new one? Would I just use spray carburetor cleaner and a brush or what



Thank you for your wisdom, oh wise ones

CaliBenzDriver

You have this intake flaps figured out.

What maintenance parts are you going to through at it besides...:

• brake pads/rotors /sensors
• radiator /Tstst, /pump,
• Serp. belt /tensioner /idlers
• plugs /boots
• air filter/gas filter
• batteries /starter /GND Strap /
• suspensions: Ctl. arms /BJ /stabs
• Tranny /Diff
• ????

Bert whitaker

I was gonna changevtranny fluid but leave mostly beyond alone. I.just turned front rotors and changed those pads/sensor. Also changed antifreeze and diff fluid and oil of course

Bert whitaker

Are u recommending i pass on it because of likely money pitness???

Bert whitaker

Havent yet checked the flap actuator rod. All else is ok

CaliBenzDriver

Nop, don't pass on it, this needs maintenance or repairs.

CaliBenzDriver

How about your engine fuel trims

• negative (lean)
• Neutral (Great)
• positive (rich)

This tells you how well engine combustion us working.

2x new O2/lambda upstream will give new life to throttle response under $100.

Bert whitaker

You mean replace o2 sensors nearest engine?

Im.a honda guy so the concept of having to monkey with stuff all the time is foreign to me

Bert whitaker

Also im not sure how to read fuel trims. Big part of me thinks this might be a beautiful neat car but only if its mostly troubleless

CaliBenzDriver

You're right that's the major difference with German cars.

I am a die-hard Honda guy too

CaliBenzDriver

these cars are like reference designs for parts undergoing development.

Every single system is built with scheduled expiration... no surprise!

Bert whitaker

Jesus christ, it just seems like a good way to ruin my life and turn it into some big goose chase of keeping the car running rather than being able to enjoy the rest of my life without it being dominated by some car maintenance endless loop

CaliBenzDriver

it comes with the territory: MYr 2007 - You know all the rubbers are history.

Bert whitaker

A lot of what you said here is reminding me of some inclement experiences I've had with cars. A while back my mother had a funny addiction to Cadillacs but she would never buy them new. She would buy them maybe three or four years old and they would just crumble into dust. Anytime I tried to fix anything on them it was like wow this was put together like some crazy research and development experiment. It was all about looking a certain way and having all these cute bells and whistles that it looked like some teenager thought up and they cobbled together. But nothing was ever in the attitude of making anything serve as a reasonably reliable vehicle or even one that could be fixed sensibly. 1985 Seville she had with the bustle back, anytime you had to change anything on the block or the head, the bolt hole would strip out and you would have to retap it and put a bigger bolt in it. Unbelievable. That was one of the first cars that I said I just can't work on this anymore mom. And she still got two Cadillacs after that!

I had my own set of addictions to Buicks which were not so severe a disaster area. But then came a 1978 Avanti that I had just been kind of brainwashed by the image of since I was very small as some kind of weird Neato car. But it was just terrible. It obviously been put together with a chassis and whole design concept that was not intended for what this thing was supposed to do. Disc brakes in the front that did not float but had to be adjusted with shims. Exhaust pipes twisted around in the most contorted shapes to get around shift linkages. Just unbelievable things that kept happening one thing after another. And I had that 78 Avanti from probably 1999 to 2003. Just a disaster. I should have known something was wrong when I first went to look at it and realize that my head couldn't fit in it unless I pulled the moon roof cover open. But the Mystique of having thought about it and brainwashed myself about it was so strong that I ended up buying it and torturing myself over it for those years. Just a really bad sign and a really stupid thing

this Mercedes C230 that we are talking about, one of the things that catches my attention about the whole design is the intake swirl flap thing. Well if you're going to have an EGR valve dumping exhaust gases into the intake with fuel injection in the cylinder head, that just means all that carbon is going to build up in those flap movement areas and of course end up obstructing them to the point where the poorly constructed flimsy plastic actuation rod is going to end up breaking along with the cam. I understand that it's for some fancy adjusted resonance with engine RPM Performance thing, but in my head it is nowhere near worth the eventual headache of clogging up those flaps. Honda would never do anything like that.

this guy came to me and told me that the break indicator was on so to help him out I changed the front brakes turn the rotors and while I was into it change the antifreeze the differential fluid in the back and an oil change just for fun. He said he would sell it to me in a year after his son used it for the rest of college and I started to drink some of the punch of this thing. But the more I talk to people and the more I read including from enlightening individuals like you, in fact significantly specifically you, the more it seems like just a disaster waiting to happen. This car was kind of wearing out one of the rear tires and I told him he should probably get it aligned. Well the shop that did the four wheel alignment said that the camber was out on the back but then it was not adjustable and I have since talked to other shops that say that the way that Mercedes designed this thing was with upper control arms that were not adjustable and that you have to buy aftermarket upper control arms that have a little bit of an eccentric bolt adjustment to give a few degrees here or there. To me that is just an indication of wildly unacceptable design work. All you have to do is just bump this thing against the curb a little bit and then you are completely screwed unless you by aftermarket parts that have the proper adjustability to their design that was not included in the original parts from Mercedes. I talked to one shot that said they worked on one that only had 22,000 miles on it and to adjust the camber they had to change the upper control arms on the back. And after only 22,000 miles!

the conversation with you makes me feel like this is more like what I have always felt about Cadillacs where they are just monkeying with things and wondering how fancy they can make something seem without any inclination toward reliability or maintainability or adjusting anything reasonably or anything. The swirl flaps the camber that's not adjustable because of fixed control arms in the back the transmission that doesn't have a fill tube from the top all kinds of things seem like bad Omens. When I had that Avanti my life was just one crazy thing after another to keep it on the road and keep serving this fancy image I had of that car. Well since I have gotten into Honda, the vehicles seem to serve me well in the tasks that one would hope to get from a vehicle. Like getting from one place to another without any disastrous failures and all the maintenance is very straightforward and mostly doable. And some of the things that would be difficult to do I have a feeling have been engineered by Honda so that they just never go wrong anyway!

Bert whitaker

Cuz I remember the final straw with the Avanti after I had paid God knows how much to get the suspension redone was that it started smelling like gas and I realized that this thing was designed with the gas tank inside the car right behind the back of the back seat! So as if it were bad enough that the gas tank really leaking but it was going to stink up the whole car and me anytime I drove it. Wildly unacceptable. There was going to have to be hog trough replacement, fiberglass work and repainting, interior reconfigurations because of water damage from The Leaky back window all kinds of craziness. Just an endless life of putting some car back together that has nothing to do with getting me some place that I wanted to go

CaliBenzDriver

You won't be disappointed: the old classics are still in use:

• the leaky windshield seal
• the smelly gas tank seal
• the squeaky wiper arms
• the uneven brake pad wear
• the busy coolant/oil leaks

+ many more MB favorites awaiting to be rediscovered.

It's all right when you stay ahead of repairs with scheduled maintenance.