General Chat

OH just drove into the drive from golf. Unloaded his stuff got back in the car, lights came on, went out, then nothing. It won't start at all. Pretty sure it is not the battery. A week ago we did 800 miles in two weeks in it, no problems/ C class 1954 Merc.

We are actually considering getting rid of it this year, it must have been listening. anyone got any ideas? :-S :-S

Assuming 1954 is a typo...
Most likely à fault in the anti theft system. You will have to get a dealer to sort out. Dont be surprised if they have to take it back to the workshop.

Yep Rollo senior moment number plate is 54 of course.

OH thinks it is the starter motor. Anyway, local garage is picking it up later today, obviously going to be expensive.

Meanwhile OH is checking fuses with his meter etc.

Good job we have a second car.

The starter is pre engaged. If it is faulty you will hear a thud as the solenoid tried to spin it up. On a 54 Merc a v rare fault.
Yr Oh wont get far with a multimeter if the fault is electronic.
Problems with sudden onset start are far from unusual. Only an auth dealer or repair shop can fix it cos you need to hook up a diagnostic computer to the car.
Quite often local garages get faults of this kind sorted by an auth agent. They recharge the fee to the customer of course. Sometimed an indie has the diag kit but not often cos expensive unless pirated.
Cheaper to go to an auth agent in the first place!
Good luck

Would be if we had a reliable one. However our local garage is very good and well used to the car. There is a potential problem with the diagnostic computer. We had a qualified diagnostic technician look at it for a fault we had a year or two back and there was no trace of the software in our model. However the local garage managed to do it.

He was only checking fuses (He does know what he is doing with that), but all were ok.

Lol that was fun!!

Low loader arrived to take the car away, man got into Merc, turned the key and it started. Hmm!! So he drove it off the drive into the road went to drive it up the ramp, and it stopped again. So now it is intermittent. Anyway he had three goes at pulling it up the ramp on the straps, the straps broke (heavy car!). Thankfully he got it up there eventually. I can only assume he is heading for our garage now!

Could be a loose battery terminal as it's intermittent and the lights go out as well or the alternator may not be charging the battery. Hopefully it will get sorted now......without costing an arm or leg!!

It's a Merc C class for heaven's sake they don't do ordinary breakdowns until they 48 have gone twice around the clock. There are Mercs which have done the distance to the moon! One almost survived Rebus.

Otoh intermittent refusal to start, even after a Basil Fawlty, is a known fault linked to the anti theft system.

BTW the 1954 model is worth quite a lot more money than the 2004 partly on style but also it has no electronics at all!

In my mind that would definitely be a blessing. Actually I believe it is fairly low mileage for its age. We have had it about six years with very few problems. One problem was the anti theft system, we didn't realise that when we left the car the anti theft system battery ran down so much that it then switched to the main battery and drained that. So we had it disconnected so there is no klaxon warning.

could be only the starter motor.....a modernish way of wiring is so that the pre engaged solenoid feed has to earth via the motor brushes, if the brushes wear down, no circuit, thus protecting the armature..so a "cheap repair" is a set of brushes, rather than a new armature....unlike in for example the old minis where the starter turned till it died absolutely destroying the innards of the starter motor........
Bob


or even a duff earthing cable???

Garage is 90% certain that it is the starter motor althought can't be absolutely sure until the get the cover off. It will be £450 including the recovery and VAT. Not too bad we thought.

The other possibility is that one of the SAM's is faulty.

SAM stands for Signal Acquisition Module and there are three of them in a C Class. they are a bit like routers in that they receive electrical signals from all the switches and sensors and route the output to actuate the necessary component.

We had a problem with the rear SAM on our old C Class Estate which caused the central locking and other rear components such as the wiper to stop working.

Replacement was around £250 plus labour.

10 years seems to be the time when things start to fail on these cars.

AnninGlos, I'm sending you a gift of a small branch from a tree in order for you to sort your car out Basil-style but do wear your specs when you do so. :-D

JoyL :-D :-D slow this afternoon, that took a while to register. Yes maybe that would help.

IGP Thanks, so far not heard more from the garage so presume their first idea is correct.

for anyone who cares :-D Car all fixed (£428),It was a new starter motor. £35 of the bill was for the recovery of the vehicle (garage is 5-10 minutes depending on traffic lights,) straight down the main road. we collected it this morning.

Hopefully all will be well now

V unlucky indeed

On Monday, OH paid a £200 bill on the Clio which he has just traded in for £100 against the new Smart!

Sharron pity he didn't trade it in before he had whatever he had done, done!

Rollo, yes unlucky, but to be fair to the car, it has cost us very little in repairs. Well unless you count four new tyres and now it needs a new battery before winter but I don't count those as repairs really. It is a lovely car to travel in (and OH says to drive as well), it is so comfortable. We know we need to change it for a less poweful one as OH will be 79 this year and shouldn't be driving like a 40 year old. His reactions are really good but these things can creep up on you and we are aware of that so, later in the year we will be looking to change.

Better he drives like a 40 yr old rather than a 20 yr old :-)

Good to hear garage guessed it correctly for you.

We only had a look in the garage on a whim. Put it down to poor timing.

So you have to go through the car buying rigmarole again. Good luck!