SamE55

I really think you should ask the dealer to check your intercooler pump. It could be the case that it goes bad gradually and since you have 40k miles on your car it's a good idea to have it replaced.

Happy2th

He said he'll check out everything he can think of tomorrow.

RoydRage

What happened?

RoydRage

Happy2th

The shop burned down the night before they were supposed to work on my car. I've been waiting ever since for them to get up an running again. They are supposed to pick up my car this Tuesday.

MidniteBluBenz

Can Drive 55

Is that really funny?

chiromikey

I don't know why but my first response was the same as midnite's. maybe because we're all tired of getting screwed by the dealers???

machz990

I thought this ECU problem after the recall was mainly affecting modded cars and not stock cars. Anyone have a stock car that lost power? How about early 05's?

Schiznick

My stock 2004 E55 and stock 2005 E55T both had the recall and flash performed and I had no loss in power at all. In fact my E55T ran quicker at the drag strip after the flash.

chiromikey

many people mistakenly have this opinion. there are plenty of people on this forum alone that have documented the resulting loss of power on their bone stock e55's.

jangy

Highly modded cars were showing up more with the issue, but there were at least 2 on here that had long and drawn out concerns. I think the only real correlation we saw between the "dreaded" flash and loss in performance had to do with the Model year, with the older being more affected.

MANY of those that were affected were simply needing to allow thier ECUs to re-learn and that came with time. I do not remember if anyone did NOT get the issue resolved.

WayneE

I admit I don't read every thread, but it seemed like a pretty small sampling of owners on here having issues. I've read of very few owners of stock E55s documenting power loss from the dreaded ECU flash.

IngenereAMG

The "sneaky reset" is resetting the throttle bodies.

If you are down on power there might be a factor of the heat, and/or it may be time to change the plugs.

Those would be 2 places that I would start.

chiromikey

i agree the sample is small but i also believe most e55 owners are different than us and don't even know the difference between 430hp and 493hp, therefor don't (can't) even acknowlede a problem. i've personally met 3 local owners with stock cars that were affected by the recall and have talked with others over the phone. there are several owners that have discussed their problems here and even more that have refrained from publicly posting because of the mb presence. so yes, the sampling may be small, but the total presence on this board isn't that big either.

WayneE

Point taken. I don't deal with the community, other than reading and posting on here, so my sampling is even smaller than yours.

Happy2th

OK, the Mercedes mechanic picked up my car tonight and he said he'll have it back tomorrow. He said "We'll see if we can get your half second back."

I said........."hopefully they can reflash the ECU back to the way it was." He said that they probably could NOT do that, but there may be some other things they can do..............

Yeah,,,,,,,right.

I'm not holding out much hope.....................


I wonder if I have a valid reason to get out of my lease now...........the MAIN reason I got this car was for the horsepower.............since they have taken my horsepower away, it's not the same car I signed the lease for. Taking away 60-70 horsepower wasn't part of the deal. I should argue that point.......

Happy2th

OK, here's an update.

They came to pick up my car yesterday, and they returned it today. The mechanic said "You should have your half second back now." I said "What did they do?" He said that they reprogrammed it for high octane fuel (it was set for low octane fuel according to him), they reflashed the computer, and set the cooling fans to come on 10C cooler.

So I take it out to test it.

Average 1/4 mile results when I bought the car new: 12.6-12.7 @ 113-114 mph.

Average 1/4 mile results after the secondary air injection pulp recall and ECU reflash : 13.3 @ 107 mph.

1/4 mile results NOW (and this is with a GTech, which usually shows even better times and MPH than the track does).....14.01 @ 103 mph. On my second run, the supercharger didn't even engage!!! It ran like it was in "limp home mode". That has never happened to me before.


IT'S EVEN WORSE THAN IT WAS!!! What kind of 2004 E55 runs 14 second quarter mile times BARELY breaking 100 mph? WTF is wrong with my car?

My buddy in his STOCK automatic Camaro Z28 WALKED away from me just now..........3 times in a row. I used to walk him easy..............

What a load of crap.

Happy2th

Just took it out and made 3 more runs.

13.8 @ 106
14.38 @ 102
14.58 @ 98

After the third run, the supercharger refused to engage.

Now what do I do?

WayneE

Sounds like bad IC pump. Take it back to the dealer (or find a new one and take it there)

chiromikey

lol, now it sounds like you have a bad i/c pump. get that fixed before you do any further testing.

AMGcrazy

Listen to the guys on this board! Classic IC pump behavior.

Happy2th

UPDATE:

They have had my car BACK in the shop now for 3 days. This time they requested to use my G-tech to test it for themselves.

They say they have found two things so far...........

1) The K&N air filters that I put in were VERY dirty according to them. I cleaned them about a year ago, after about 2 years of use, and they weren't that dirty then. (Dirty, but not VERY dirty. Don't see how they could have been THAT dirty.)

2) They said that the supercharger shaft was BENT!! They are ordering me a new supercharger. He said that they are stumped as to WHY or HOW the supercharger shaft could have bent. I have no idea, the only mod I've ever made to this car is the K&N air filter.

We'll see how it runs after they get it installed.............should be sometime next week.

tigerlam92

Another thing you may consider is have them set the octane retard setting to "baseline" not 89, 92, 95, etc. This also had been discussed to death as well. The consensus so far is the best setting is set at baseline. I had also had my octane retard setting changed but went back to baseline.

My take on this is that the computer has the octane timing retard setting set at RON. In Europe, the baseline (or timing table) for our car is probably set already for premium gas which comes at 98 or 100 RON. Then the computer allow you to retard to 95, 92, 89 as you wish, keeping in mind that 95 RON in US is ~91 octane and 92 RON in US is ~88.5 octane. If the tech set the octane timing retard to 92 RON thinking this is US premium gas then he is actually reducing timing and slowing the car down mistakenly.

Again, I agree with the other that this is not the root cause but something adding to the problem. The root cause of your problem is that the supercharger is not engaging and probably is the IC pump. You can monitor the IAT or do a "sneaky reset" and see if the first WOT is strong and the second or half way through the first WOT run it dies becuase IAT is too high and ECU shut off the supercharger. This is such a hassle and only our car has it, but it is a way to avoid destroying the $50K motor.

Happy2th

OK, update time.

Mercedes replaced my 2004 E55 supercharger and said they think they have solved the problem (the supercharger had a bent shaft, according to them.)

They also told me that they found nothing wrong with the intercooler pump.

Needless to say, it didn't run ANY better tonight.

I am SICK OF THIS!!! It's been to the Mercedes dealership THREE TIMES NOW for this issue and the track times have been getting worse EACH TIME!!

I'm going to post all of my track times from before the air injection pump recall/ECU reflash, and from AFTER the recall.

Track times BEFORE recall (before April 2006)

5/14/2004 12.70@112.00 (Density altitude 2000 feet) San Antonio Dragway
5/14/2004 12.77@111.97 (Density altitude 2000 feet) San Antonio Dragway
5/14/2004 12.70@112.02 (Density altitude 2000 feet) San Antonio Dragway
5/14/2004 12.67@111.77 (Density altitude 2000 feet) San Antonio Dragway
7/2/2004 12.94@108.56 (Density altitude 3400 feet) Temple Dragway
11/12/2004 12.75@113.55 (Density altitude 100 feet) Temple Dragway
8/5/2005 12.41@114.10 (Density altitude -900 feet) Temple Dragway

Track times AFTER recall (AFTER April 2006)

6/2/2006 13.48@105.71 (DA 2300 feet) Temple Dragway
6/2/2006 13.41@105.66 (DA 2300 feet) Temple Dragway
6/2/2006 13.34@105.26 (DA 2300 feet) Temple Dragway
6/2/2006 13.45@105.71 (DA 2300 feet) Temple Dragway
10/6/2006 13.51@105.58 (DA 2500 feet) Temple Dragway
10/6/2006 13.39@105.51 (DA 2500 feet) Temple Dragway
5/17/2007 13.11@107.37 (DA 900 feet) Temple Dragway
5/17/2007 13.03@107.22 (DA 900 feet) Temple Dragway
5/31/2007 13.39@105.41 (DA 1800 feet) Temple Dragway
5/31/2007 13.29@105.51 (DA 1800 feet) Temple Dragway

Track times AFTER supercharger replaced with new supercharger.

8/17/2007 13.37@105.44 (DA 2200 feet) Temple Dragway
8/17/2007 13.63@104.41 (DA 2200 feet) Temple Dragway
8/17/2007 Didn't finish run, supercharger wouldn't engage.

Too disgusted to do any more runs today................

chiromikey

it amazes me that mb would replace an entire s/c and still insist that you don't have an i/c pump problem. the s/c shutdown symptoms are classic and the pump failure problem epidemic. a data logger is still a great tool to help show the dealer you're serious.

if you want to fix this yourself, spend the $150 on a johnson cm30 pump to see if that keeps the s/c engaged. after that (if you intend to keep the car) spend the money on powerchips ecu software and go whoop your buddies z28.