MERCEDES BENZ W202 C-CLASS 250D
The Internet without any doubt, is the world's largest data repository of information. It sports information of every kind and virtually topic. Yet, I find it very surprising how little useful information it actually contains. I'm not trying to be facetious, but that is just the reality of the situation - It is what it is. Much of this "information" is however duplicated, often copied from the same sources, regurgitated, blogged, forumed and re-echoed by millions of websites in virtually every language.Out of the tens of billions of web sites globally, there is truly very little origination, containing genuine helpful details that unselfishly assists others, expecting nothing in return. Virtually every website out there is trying to sell you something online. Ranging from services to physical products to vapour ware. Some trying to scam you with things ranging from snake oil to overpriced trinkets. Others entice you to register with their sites that deliver porn related pop-ups of naked females and sex toys. There are even some with links and pop-ups that promises great wealth. Not forgetting those that spam you with junk mail, Trojans and viruses that hijack your browser. All of them shouting credit card very loudly.
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| Electronic fuel pump that leaks. |
Their creators being more interested in potential advertising revenue that can be earned from those overbearing adverts prefixed to their video instead of actually creating content that will really help a fellow car owner. Here, I'm specifically eluding to information on the Mercedes Benz C-Class 250D Sedan W202 phase-I 1993-1997 which seems to be in extremely short supply. Not even the Mercedes Benz service agent have any form of on-line help worth mentioning, considering the car in question is just about 20 years old. But allow me to digress for a moment.
My wife had endless trouble with her 1989 Mercedes Benz 124 230E, to the point that she threw in the towel because she just couldn't battle the constant high cost of repairs any longer. These cost didn't even include the cost associated with its regular upkeep.
Her troubles started out with her car overheating which turned out to be a leak in the radiator which caused the cylinder head gasket to blow. The temperature warning light only came on when it was already over 120 degrees. Since the car already had more than 350 000 km on the clock we decided on a complete engine and radiator replacement, which came in at quite a cost. Shortly thereafter a leaking steering pump was replaced because she found it impossible to steer when the hydraulic fluid ran low. What a mission, the intake manifold and the steering rack had to be removed to replace it.
Months later, the starter bendix started to drag and the starter was replaced. Thereafter the complete right front hub was replaced along with the knuckle because of two wheel nuts that broke off in the hub, that just couldn't be removed. Drilling it out and re-tapping the holes invariable was going to cost more than a complete hub, so new hub was fitted. Then the battery gave up the ghost and shortly thereafter the alternator died which were both replaced along with two new tyres.
Somehow after the steering rack replacement, the car just didn't perform well, even though wheel alignment was done. For some reason the front wheels would shudder when driving over an expansion joint on bridges. Thereafter the car suffered from intermittent switch off and had difficulty starting. Several weeks later the starter gave up the ghost a second time due to extended cranking. Hardly was the starter replaced when the sound of metal rubbing against metal alerted me to the fact that the brake pads were at end of its useful life. Front and back break pads were replaced, only to find out that the handbrake engaged but didn't stop the car from rolling. So it needed brake shoes as well. Meanwhile the car still switched off when getting to stop signs and had difficulty starting it again.
This turned out to be a stretched timing chain causing the distributor timing to change every so often. The gear driving the distributor every so often slipped a tooth or two because of the slack in the timing chain . After battling to get the chain tensioner bolt and spring out and removing a link, the chain was too short and the link was put back. At this point we just had enough because the car had started to rust. We decided to scrap the 230E and went out to buy a slightly newer Mercedes Benz that we could afford, because it is the only car that my wife ever drove and couldn't drive stick either. Our choice was the Mercedes Benz Elegance 1996 C-Class 250D W202 which was in a relatively nice condition considering she just turn 20. The best part, she was within our budget.
However, within months we started having problems with the C250D. The speedometer stopped working yet my wife continued using the car until the mailman delivered a traffic fine for speeding. So I went out a bought an instrument cluster. After replacing it , it still didn't work. It looked identical, the plugs were identical, each having the same number of pins. The difference was that the diesel version revved up to 6000 RPM whereas as the gasoline instrument cluster revved up to 7000 RPM. The rev counter behaved like the speedometer and the fuel guage just climb towards full even though in reality there was less than a quarter tank showing on the original instrument cluster.
Shortly thereafter the the gearbox died which was due to a faulty radiator/oil cooler that allowed water to enter the gearbox through the oil cooler / radiator. Considering the W124 and the W202 use the same gearboxes, we fitted the W124 gearbox after swopping over the tail pieces.
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Hardly was the gearbox replaced, when the Merc cranked with difficulty in the morning, and she smoked profusely when it eventually idled after several attempts to start her. Somehow thereafter she would start every time and drove perfectly normal for the rest of the day. Restated, the first start of the day often ran the battery down.
To Continue....
I intend to outline how each of these repairs were affected with pictures to assist those Mercedes Benz 250D W202 owners who are experiencing similar problems with Mercedes Benz C250D W202,
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Mercedes Benz C250D.
