I've always been a huge fan of the W203 chassis. I think it offers the best combination of size, handling, features and reliability and I recently picked one up for a steal during a snowstorm in January.
Silver on grey, MBTex, C240 RWD, 117k miles.
So why was someone willing to sell this car for next to nothing? This car burned oil, misfired, and had a parasitic draw. All headaches to deal with however I was able to resolve all of these problems over 2 weekends using products from my product catalog.
So the first problem I attacked was the oil burning. Both valve cover gaskets were leaking and the breather covers were clogged.
Using this kit I pulled the covers, cleaned them and resealed the breathers.
https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/mercedes-comprehensive-valve-cover-gasket-kit-oem-m112016
While doing the valve covers I realized one of the harnesses was routed in front of the water pump incorrectly and the serpentine belt was cutting into the insulation so I pulled the water pump to sort that out.
I used the water pump gasket located here:
https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/mercedes-engine-water-pump-housing-gasket-1122010180
Next on the list was a very common issue on these cars, the interior door handle.
I grabbed an orion gray door handle from Mercedes and got that installed in a half hour.
Next up was the misfire, cylinder 1 plug 'a' was not happy so I remedied that with a fresh set of plugs and wires and had the car running flawlessly.
https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/mercedes-w112-ignition-kit-w112igkitoem
Lastly, the parasitic draw. This one kicked my ass because I made the mistake of trying to troubleshoot by connecting a meter in series and pulling fuses after the car went to sleep. The moment I connected in series I could not replicate the problem.
The car would not misbehave and the most I saw was a 10 milliamp draw. It was only after I decided to test by checking the voltage drop across the fuses that I was able to track to problem down to the teleaid/telematics unit and a sticking trunk switch. I did a video on this issue which I will publish this week.
I did a number of other short videos with the car that you can watch here:
And Mike did the serp belt video here:
All in all I enjoy the hell out of this car and for a very minimal investment I was able to turn this thing into a solid daily driver. If you would like to see more content around this platform, feel free to reach out to me
--Kyle
Silver on grey, MBTex, C240 RWD, 117k miles.
So why was someone willing to sell this car for next to nothing? This car burned oil, misfired, and had a parasitic draw. All headaches to deal with however I was able to resolve all of these problems over 2 weekends using products from my product catalog.
So the first problem I attacked was the oil burning. Both valve cover gaskets were leaking and the breather covers were clogged.
Using this kit I pulled the covers, cleaned them and resealed the breathers.
https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/mercedes-comprehensive-valve-cover-gasket-kit-oem-m112016
While doing the valve covers I realized one of the harnesses was routed in front of the water pump incorrectly and the serpentine belt was cutting into the insulation so I pulled the water pump to sort that out.
I used the water pump gasket located here:
https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/mercedes-engine-water-pump-housing-gasket-1122010180
Next on the list was a very common issue on these cars, the interior door handle.
I grabbed an orion gray door handle from Mercedes and got that installed in a half hour.
Next up was the misfire, cylinder 1 plug 'a' was not happy so I remedied that with a fresh set of plugs and wires and had the car running flawlessly.
https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/mercedes-w112-ignition-kit-w112igkitoem
Lastly, the parasitic draw. This one kicked my ass because I made the mistake of trying to troubleshoot by connecting a meter in series and pulling fuses after the car went to sleep. The moment I connected in series I could not replicate the problem.
The car would not misbehave and the most I saw was a 10 milliamp draw. It was only after I decided to test by checking the voltage drop across the fuses that I was able to track to problem down to the teleaid/telematics unit and a sticking trunk switch. I did a video on this issue which I will publish this week.
I did a number of other short videos with the car that you can watch here:
And Mike did the serp belt video here:
All in all I enjoy the hell out of this car and for a very minimal investment I was able to turn this thing into a solid daily driver. If you would like to see more content around this platform, feel free to reach out to me
--Kyle