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Purchased a black 2004 Mercedes E55 AMG T with 145k miles in Germany and am importing it tomorrow to The Netherlands where I live so I guess I'm going to be here more often now
The test drive was great but I did notice some things for which I have some questions and I hope someone can confirm or partly answer some things...
Question 1: With the engine running with the hood open I noticed it was dripping some greenish fluid on the cover below the engine on the front right when standing in front of it. I did some research and think it's probably power steeling fluid (Pentosin CHF-11S) leaking from the back of the reservoir? It was right below the reservoir as well I would say. It's probably not coolant?
I bought a 1 liter Pentosin CHF-11S which I will bring on the drive back to my house... In all my excitement I forgot to check any levels of fluid and if there was oil in the coolant tank.. dammit
Question 2a: When doing the test drive I noticed when standing still in front of a traffic light it would VERY VERY VERY lightly go up and back down with rpm's every 2 seconds or so.
Question 2b: When the engine was running with the hood open I noticed every 2 seconds or maybe every other second that the tensioner of the supercharger would go up and down lightly. Maybe that can be related to Question 2a?
Can this be a cylinder misfiring so that it was only running on 7 cylinders or will you really notice that?
In all my excitement I forgot to read codes as I did bring a code reader. Do you think I have a huge problem here driving this home 60 miles, just driving normal?
Question 3: It had a code which said "Abblendlicht" was broken which translated to "dimmed headlights" broken. I checked my VIN and it said I have the bi-xenon headlights. I ordered the following lights x2: "Philips 85122 4300K P32D-2 D2S".
Am I correct that "Philips 85122 4300K P32D-2 D2S" is the OEM Xenon? Was 4300K from the factory and is D2S correct?
Question 4: The car has a set of summer and winter wheels/tyres coming with it. I absolutely hate the wheels currently on it but did check on ebay etc. what they go for if I would sell them. Is it correct that these are worth quite a bit or am I mistaking:
Question 5:
The car has rear park distance sensors and on the dashboard it has this device, which seems to be badly suffering from years in the sun and not working anymore. Is this thing original or is that 3rd party later build in?
1) Yes very possible, the coolant is blue and there aren't as many coolant leak points on that side of the engine, so definitely check the reservoir level first before adding.
2) What exactly is going 'up and down'? I'm missing some info in those questions. As far as misfiring, if that was occurring you would have a check engine light, and you would notice more of a roughness when driving not just at idle. If it's just a feeling, that could be anything from engine mounts (common wear item) to an issue with engine performance, sensors etc. I'm assuming it is stock and not modified? With no check engine light, and fluid levels checked and topped, a 60 mile drive should be ok but obviously monitor for anything that changes (and noise from the power steering if that leak is bad - you don't want to run it too low and cause problems elsewhere in the system).
3) Yes those headlights are correct, I had to replace one when I bought my car, but verify they aren't actually working first, you could have other electrical problems, someone could have modified the headlights etc. Also - on the US cars when you install an aftermarket LED signal or marker bulb you can sometimes get error messages about the lights, so if you check and find that all the lights are working but you maybe have some different looking bulbs than stock, there isn't much to do besides returning everything to stock (although the code will pose no issue, you just have to ignore it when you drive).
4) You'd have to remove the wheels to check stamped markings on the inside, verify they are genuine Mercedes. There are a lot of copies out there and some take the OEM center caps, copies aren't worth nearly as much. If you see a genuine Mercedes stamp, there should be a part number too, search using that to value the wheels. Also be aware, at least in the US, the used wheel market isn't anywhere near what the new price from Mercedes is, so value has to be determined by other used sets for sale.
5) That is aftermarket from what I can tell. Maybe if you can remove it and look for a manufacturer/part number you could get a replacement?
If you have even one cylinder misfiring you cannot mistake it. Engine's power is down significantly(!), the car literally shakes at idle, and the supercharger will not engage.
Place the car on STAR, run a "Quick Test" and the Built-In-Self-Test will tell you the stored and current problems with the car. Clear all codes, drive for two/three days, then recheck. If you do not have STAR, contact BenzNinja (in your time zone), purchase a STAR system, and sign up for his support. If nothing else, purchase a quality STAR system; it will pay for itself in three uses.
Interesting your map display is in color whereas mine in my US-spec car is in gray...
Edit: For what it is worth, I have very good memories of the Netherlands from my time serving in the military in Germany way back in the days of the Cold War...
Thanks GinDistiller and bbirdwell for your replies, it is appreciated!
Reading both your comments I think at this point I can rule out an engine misfire as the car was not shaking at all at idle or while driving nor did it feel down on power at all. We went on the German autobahn and although there was a lot of traffic I managed to do a few very hard pulls which it seemed to do fine. My baby was in the car as my wife wanted to test isofix and he started laughing when we did those hard pulls.
I will get a STAR system soon as possible but don't have one yet. I do have a good code scanner I will take with me and check for codes when we drive home (fingers crossed...).
GinDistiller
1) Great, that's kind of what I hoped for and will make sure to check the level and stop ever 20 miles to recheck or so
2) The needle of the RPM is going up like a notch and then straight back down when idling. It doesn't feel rough or shaking.
However when the engine was running I went to look under the hood to inspect engine noise etc. and I noticed the tensioner pullen going in and out a bit every 2 second. Like it was loosing and then got more tension. I'm pretty sure that is not correct but what it could be, guess I'll have to do better inspection and maybe upload a video here tomorrow.
3) Good, thanks!
4) Will remove the wheels and see if they are original like you say
5) Good to know it's aftermarket, will have a better look at it when I have the car but I'm very allergic to such aftermarket devices so I think it will have to go.
bbirdwell, ah okay I've seen only maps with color display on W211's I've seen, maybe it's a difference between US and and Euro indeed.
This car is originally from Italy and was imported to Germany. So I hope the miles are original but we'll see... the nice thing is that in Italy it's hot most of the time so cars from there have almost no rust or anything and seen not so much salt.
Great to hear you have good memories of The Netherlands, we do our best to entertain
I'll update tomorrow how the drive home went and what else interesting I've found out.
As long as you aren't hearing belt squeal that would indicate the belt is slipping I wouldn't worry about that.
On rpm going up and down, a little movement is also normal. Sometimes extra changes are due to the AC being on so you could try without and see if it changes, but as with above I wouldn't worry too much, just get things scanned for peace of mind and make sure service items are up to date and enjoy driving her!
Mine does the idle surge thing in certain conditions in gear. I have been assuming it's related to my P0505 that will sometimes set when the car is driven in freezing or below weather. And I assume that is some kind of vacuum leak that I haven't gotten around to fixing yet...so I ignore it. Last time I had a CEL for it (or for anything at all) was coming out of last winter around March.
One thing you can check is the TPS % at idle. I think you want it in the 2-3% range and I forget if that's in park or in gear.
So, yesterday was the big day and we went and got the car, it was standing there all washed and looking great. Was surprised to see nice looking AMG winter wheels and winter tyres with enough profile in the back of the car all packaged up. Germans and their cars...
We had some coffee, the guy handed over the keys and some of the maintenance bills (he showed me before as well) and we could drive home. I checked the fluids and all was good, even the power steering fluid, which I assumed was leaking... We then had to drive back through one of the busiest traffic in Germany in the Ruhrgebiet where we stopped for some McDonalds and on to The Netherlands via the German Autobahn. At the beginning I was really careful monitoring everything and I guess just "scared" to have bought a lemon or that it would brake once I floored it or something. I guess I must stop watching Hoovies Garage :P All went absolutely fine and we arrived home doing some nice high speed runs on the autobahn.
Yesterday evening I mapped out all the maintenance previously done that I know of via the maintenance bills in a spreadsheet. This morning I swapped the non-working Xenon out with a brand new Xenon bulb but unfortunately that didn't work at all so I'm now in 5 minutes going to be swapping the ballast/igniter from the working side to the non-working side and see if that works, I really hope it does...
UPDATE: Ballast/Igniter that I thought was broken did fine on the other side. The ballast/igniter working 100% didn't work either on the side where we had the initial problem. So just checking some German video I think it's the control unit? The guy bought a new one and that made it work. If I buy a new one, does it need coding or just replace?
I also took a short video of the tensioner moving, maybe it's nothing but I thought I'd show it:
Hmmm I have something strange with the wheels, at least to me.
I just tried fitting the winter tyres/wheels and the front went all OK but on the rear the winter wheels don't fit?! I'm not sure if I have some strange setup or that I'm doing something wrong or that they have given me wheels that would never have fitted?
On the car was:
Front 8.5Jx19 ET38 - 245-35-19
Rear 9.5Jx19 ET38 - 275-30-19
I'm trying to fit OEM Mercedes AMG wheels:
Front: 8Jx18 ET30 - 245-40-18
Front: 8Jx18 ET30 - 245-40-18
On the rears it seems that the part of the wheel t hat slides on the brake rotor is smaller than the part on the brake rotor. It also looks like the wheels that were on there have a larger hole.
Some pictures, first of the fitment on the rotor. The problem seems that the ring around the center is wider then in the front?:
Then the 19" wheel with inner diameter:
And now the 18" inner diameter which seems smaller?
Is this normal when you switch to winter wheels, do I have to make changes or anything?
It's a little tough to tell for sure by the picture, but I'm 95% sure that those larger wheels are aftermarket (or made for a different MB application) and require a hub centric ring. It looks like there is still one stuck to that rotor, it basically fills the gap of a larger opening to make sure the wheel doesn't move around. They are typically made of aluminum, but rusty bits can get it stuck to the rotor often. Assuming there is a small gap/lip between that ring and the rotor surface, just get a flathead and start prying (may want to spray with lubricant as well), sometimes you may need to wire brush slightly if there is stuff along the outer ring holding to the rotor still. And make sure to save those if you want to put the larger wheels back on.
GinDistiller, thanks for the reply! I've never seen or had a car with such a hub centric ring before so after reading your post and taking another look at the photo I posted I think that you are indeed correct. Sorry for my bad paint skills but I assume the large red circle is this hub centric ring? And the smaller red circle would be a same sort of screw you remove when replacing a rotor, correct?
Also, I checked the inside of the black wheels, they are as you assumed correctly, not MB oem. They seem aftermarket as they have no MB part number in them.
Right, I think I'll go ahead and try again with eh hub centric ring. Will use some lubricant.
Thanks a lot for the help, I really didn't see it somehow
Actually what you have circled is part of the rotor, the ring is around the part sticking out (think the size of the wheel input). The other wheels might still have theirs stuck to the inside of the wheel to look at for comparison. If I wasn't on my phone I'd attempt a paint picture, but maybe Google hubcentric rings and see what they look like, that may help. Good luck!
You are absolutely correct! What I painted was not good that was just the rotor itself. The left rear wheel had the hub centric ring on the rotor and could easily get it off with pliers! All the other 3 wheels actually had them stuck inside the wheel as you said.
The winter tyres are on, yaay
On the downside, it seems I have an oil leak and I think it's coming from the oil filter housing, have to investigate a bit more.
Xenon headlight control module (Hella) was ordered and will arrive on Wednesday. Fingers crossed that is going to work. I watched a German video of the guy uninstalling and installing on a normal W211, it had tons of room on the front right but on the E55 it seems there is some sort of radiator so it will be a ****ty job to do working around it... but I think I'll be able to do it with a lot of swearing
Thanks GinDistiller for the help on the wheels, learned something new today!
@Gripen If there is not a MB part number on the back of the larger wheels it is not an OEM wheel. Those style wheels were not originally available on the E55 wagon - no 19" wheels were.
@Gripen If there is not a MB part number on the back of the larger wheels it is not an OEM wheel. Those style wheels were not originally available on the E55 wagon - no 19" wheels were.
Okay good to know there were no 19" inch wheels available! I already thought they were not OEM as I indeed didn't see a MB part number like on the 18" ones I have.
1. I just checked my pulleys etc. and on running the engine it seems that the crank pulley is wobbling? This scared me a bit. Here the video of the bouncing tensioner and the wobbly end of the crank pulley?
Video (and yes I also noticed the coolant(?) leak:
2. Am I correct that when starting up the engine and/or letting it run idle in P, the upper part of the clutch should not be spinning, only the end where the belt is on? If it does spin does that mean it is stuck? The SC clutch was replaced in the end of 2015 by a German MB Dealer, I have the invoice from it.
Both green and red arrows are spinning, this can of course also be seen in the video above:
I guess I'm a bit worried about the noise it's making on startup and just in general it seems really loud like a vacuum cleaner?
I've searched around a bit and some say the engine just makes noise that it's the way it is but I've also seen youtube videos of the engine running which seems to be a lot quieter.
This all looks pretty normal, however not a bad idea to get the belts off and spin/wobble all of the pulleys to check for roughness, play, and noise. The crank pulley has some rubber to isolate vibration so 'a little' movement like that is common. As long as there aren't rubber pieces coming out of it and it feels fine when you try and wiggle it I'd simply monitor to see if it gets any worse.
Clutch pulley movement is normal, your other arrow points at the magnet which spins because of natural vacuum in the supercharger. That silver disc between the two, that is riveted on in 3 places, is what the magnet sucks on to to engage boost. You said power was good so that is all functioning as it should!
GinDistiller, thanks a lot for you reply.
Makes me feel a bit better and I learned something new here about the supercharger. Sorry I'm a bit new to the M113K so just learning along.
The double idler pulley (if that's what you call them) seems to be not in supergood condition, at least for the supercharger belt idler pulley the top one as I could spin it very freely and hear the bearings a little bit. Will have a look at the other ones when I do the oil filter housing gasket.
What I do still find odd is the supercharger belt tensioner going up and down so much. I've watched some other YouTube videos of the M113K and couldn't really see them doing the same. What could possibly cause such jumping? Would it just be the tensioner going out or can a wobble in the crank pulley cause this?
More likely the tensioner just getting weaker, but until it's slipping, as long as you're making the correct amount of boost then it's still doing its job. Not sure if you are planning to modify the car, but a lot of us run belt wrap kits to help combat slippage, it takes some of the work off of the tensioner too. I've seen (but not tried) new heavier duty tensioner kits, but that may be overkill for a stock or lightly modified car.
The double idler pulleys are notorious, usually the first pulley to fail outside of bearing troubles on the SC pulley (which you've had taken care of already), so yes if you have some noise I'd definitely replace.
What I do still find odd is the supercharger belt tensioner going up and down so much. I've watched some other YouTube videos of the M113K and couldn't really see them doing the same. What could possibly cause such jumping? Would it just be the tensioner going out or can a wobble in the crank pulley cause this?
Supercharger belt tensioner should not move. Replacing it will quiet down the engine bay as well
@Gripen You may be interested in this thread about rebuilding pulleys. When I did my pulleys, the cost of all of them was less than $70 (compared to MB at about $1,400) and fairly easy to do. My post is #59. https://mbworld.org/forums/w211-amg/...ld-27-a-3.html
@Gripen You may be interested in this thread about rebuilding pulleys. When I did my pulleys, the cost of all of them was less than $70 (compared to MB at about $1,400) and fairly easy to do. My post is #59. https://mbworld.org/forums/w211-amg/...ld-27-a-3.html
I rebuilt my double pulley setup recently. These are the parts I used:
ok by pictures but the original idlers pulleys are known to fail and have left many stranded over the years. We have billet idler kits in at least 4 different fun colors/
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E63 Biturbo, UPD Cold Air induction kit, UPD performance crank pulley and UPD adjustable rear suspension with ride height adjustment.
Thanks for your replies!
After reading your posts I have gone ahead and ordered the double idler pulley and the tensioner, both Febi. I think it will come in next week, so will have to wait a bit. It wasn't cheap (much cheaper on my BMW e61 530i) but yeah better to just get it over with
Thanks for the posts and possibilities about rebuilding using those bearings and such but I don't think it's for me! The upgraded ones might be something for later but for now I just want to keep it stock.
Xenon Hella control module came in yesterday already, did the job last evening and managed to do it by moving the intercooler out of the way a bit via the wheel well arch.... result, Xenon is burning again!! NICE.
So now that the lights are all working I have made an appointment for the inspection of the car for importing and hopefully pass to get a license plate so I can officially drive it, that will be done on the 16th
Am also awaiting the 3 Elring gaskets for the oil filter housing which I will be doing as well as I've spotted it leaking.
From the DIY on forums and youtube I think I can get away with not draining the oil, correct? Just put a rag over the two oil lines?
10-28-2021, 06:44 AM
