Hi folks,
I’m a new W211 owner with a 2005 E320 CDI. A few of you just helped me fix an underboost issue on this car which appeared during my drive home from purchasing it. Turned out to be a leak in the charge air system. Now I'm having issues with ABS/ESP.
I live in the mountains and work in the silicon valley, so my commute is twisty mountain roads and also bay area freeways. The first morning I drove the car to work on highway 85 in stop-and-go traffic, I managed to lock up the brakes while going about 15mph and I barely stopped before rear-ending a Civic. The tires made a godawful squealing and people stared. Embarrassing! That same day on my way home while coming down a compound corner on a mountain road while coasting at about 30mph (no pressing of either pedal), I hit a pothole with my driver’s side front tire which seemed to trigger the ABS/ESP to do some CRAZY stuff including locking up different wheels independently. It seemed to go back to normal, but after 1/4 mile I took another turn and the wheels started locking up again. It made me uncomfortable enough to pull over because I started to think I might have had a flat. Until then I had been doing this same 60-mile commute in two different W123s for thousands of miles with zero issues nor similar scares.
Since then I’ve had several “traction control events” and I have not developed any trust for the car. What concerns me is that the ABS seems to be not working at all. The ABS on my previous cars that had it worked by pulsating the brakes. Is the Mercedes system different? Or is it just broken? There’s no light on the dash being illuminated and no code being thrown.
We put the car on STAR SDS and dug around looking for codes in the braking/traction system. Running an “inspect brake system for air” showed some air in the rear brake lines! I figured perhaps that might be triggering my ESP issues — the rear wheels aren’t being braked enough and so the ESP thinks they’re slipping and activates the traction control before ABS has a chance to kick in.
We did a brake fluid flush and bleed today, and there were no obvious bubbles that came out from any corner. However, we did another “inspect brake system for air” and sure enough, SDS reported almost the exact same readings showing air in the rear brake circuits are shown!
Attached is a photo of the STAR readings from the “inspect brake system for air” diagnostic. It shows the word "speicherdruck" which apparently means "accumulator" -- coincidentally the name of one of the SBC parts that is known to fail.. Does anyone have any experience with these symptoms and have ideas for what it could be?
I’m a new W211 owner with a 2005 E320 CDI. A few of you just helped me fix an underboost issue on this car which appeared during my drive home from purchasing it. Turned out to be a leak in the charge air system. Now I'm having issues with ABS/ESP.
I live in the mountains and work in the silicon valley, so my commute is twisty mountain roads and also bay area freeways. The first morning I drove the car to work on highway 85 in stop-and-go traffic, I managed to lock up the brakes while going about 15mph and I barely stopped before rear-ending a Civic. The tires made a godawful squealing and people stared. Embarrassing! That same day on my way home while coming down a compound corner on a mountain road while coasting at about 30mph (no pressing of either pedal), I hit a pothole with my driver’s side front tire which seemed to trigger the ABS/ESP to do some CRAZY stuff including locking up different wheels independently. It seemed to go back to normal, but after 1/4 mile I took another turn and the wheels started locking up again. It made me uncomfortable enough to pull over because I started to think I might have had a flat. Until then I had been doing this same 60-mile commute in two different W123s for thousands of miles with zero issues nor similar scares.
Since then I’ve had several “traction control events” and I have not developed any trust for the car. What concerns me is that the ABS seems to be not working at all. The ABS on my previous cars that had it worked by pulsating the brakes. Is the Mercedes system different? Or is it just broken? There’s no light on the dash being illuminated and no code being thrown.
We put the car on STAR SDS and dug around looking for codes in the braking/traction system. Running an “inspect brake system for air” showed some air in the rear brake lines! I figured perhaps that might be triggering my ESP issues — the rear wheels aren’t being braked enough and so the ESP thinks they’re slipping and activates the traction control before ABS has a chance to kick in.
We did a brake fluid flush and bleed today, and there were no obvious bubbles that came out from any corner. However, we did another “inspect brake system for air” and sure enough, SDS reported almost the exact same readings showing air in the rear brake circuits are shown!
Attached is a photo of the STAR readings from the “inspect brake system for air” diagnostic. It shows the word "speicherdruck" which apparently means "accumulator" -- coincidentally the name of one of the SBC parts that is known to fail.. Does anyone have any experience with these symptoms and have ideas for what it could be?