Any Mercedes experts?
 

My father has an 02 s320 cdi with a dead battery, however the battery is in the boot for some reason, but apparantley there are some jump starting points under the bonnet, does any body know where these are as nothing is labeled as such.

Thanks

Have a look for a rectangular box about the size of a match box, probably has a + marked on the top. Flip it open and that's your positive point. Earth can be to any suitable point on the engine / chassis.

Thankyou very very much! :)

Did you know that Mercedes have a customer service team that help with issues like these?
020 7660 9993 - I had them on speed dial.

lol did you have alot of problems SRS?

I have to admit I thought Mercs were well built, didnt know they had rust problems.

Between about 1999 and 2005 a lot of the cooking models had very poor corrosion protection applied by the factories. A result of cost cutting apparently. Accountants... a plague on the world of engineering excellence!

I have heard stories that up until the mid 90's

the engineers designed and built the cars and told the accountants how much to sell them for

then after the mid 90's the accountants told the engineers they needed a car designed for X

and the era of the beautifully designed ashtray open and close mechanism was lost

Cheers for the responses guys, travelled 150 miles to My Dads, however there is no box in the engine bay with a positive terminal, removed almost every bit of plastic.

Also removed the metal plate in the passenger footwell, nothing there, then tried taking the back seat out, but its all metal :brickwall

Any other ideas's?

Thanks

Try asking on the forum linked below.
I'm a member and have found the guys on there a very helpful bunch.

http://forums.mercedesclub.org.uk

Nik.

Sorry, I thought this was all sorted. Now I'm paying attenion you have a W220 S class or rather your Dad does.

These do not have jump start points under the bonnet, you need to jump from the battery in the boot. However you probably can't open the boot because it's powered. If so and you have an original key you should be able to get the blade out of the key and use it in the lock next to the boot handle turning it fully to the left to oen the boot.

Failing that (as they sometimes seize up through lack of use) you should find a positive terminal behind the passenger footwell kick plate. It will be up high and maybe covered by palstic.

Or you can use a positive terminal under the main fusebox under the bonnet.

Google "Mercedes W220 jump start" or "Mercedes W220 flat battery" and you will find lots of help.

Nothing major, just; both front shocks failing, front spring, both top mounts, complete ARB, droplinks, front ball joint, Harmon Kardon ipod input, Harmon Kardon 6 dics CD player, front calliper seized, starter motor, entire steering rack and all 4 doors replaced due to rust. Rust on tailgate but I sorted that out myself.

All this on a 28,000mile Mercedes between 4 and 5 years old.

:lol1:, thats a good one. I was even told by a Mercedes technician that certain parts were 'not designed to last more than 5 years'...he wasnt kidding.

Sadly this is all too common with Mercedes, not good enough for what is supposed to be a prestige marque.

What model did you own?

B200 Turbo. It is/was the flagship B class and is a superb car when everything works, the engine is very impressive. I still have it as Im loathed to just give it to someone else having gone through all that expense and stress, after all its half a new car. Fortunately it has been problem free for the last year and a bit so Im hoping that I have put right everything that was build poorly.

When I lived in Spain I bought a Mercedes Viano from new that was superb for 2 years. Towards the end it was feeling ropy and worn, clunks and knocks were appearing and I was losing faith rapidly. I sold it on as the warranty over there is only 2 years (coincidence :wonder:) taking a €18,000 hit.

Ouch €18k damm that must of hurt, that's 4 good cars in my book :lol1: and the reason I only ever bought one new car, fortunately I only lost £3k in 2yrs but even that buys a decent motor, what ever happened to reliability and build quality.:(

maybe just not profitable

^Exactly. Mercedes could make them perfectly reliable if they wanted to but why would they when their brand is already perceived to be of high quality? I have learnt a lot about Mercedes in my ownership years and it isnt impressive. Sourcing cheap parts that are built in South Africa, skipping on basic dipping procedures to prevent rust - something that would have cost a tiny fraction of what a repair cost would be, building suspension parts slightly weaker so that they fail 5 years down the line forcing the owners to purchase new parts etc. If I had to pay for all of the parts that needed replacing on my car I would have been looking at around the £10,000 mark. Some of the legal cover up stories that you hear about from mbclub.co.uk and having spoken to Mercedes body workshops, Leeds, are truly shocking.

Yep all true sadly. I have an 05 SL, a car that cost £90K new. last summer it got vandalised so I took the opportunity to have it stripped and resprayed (as they were doing half the car anyway).

Even in my car which is better built than most Mercs we found some minor corrosion on the body.

The only saving grace about my car is the mechancals all seem well built thankfully! Mind you so they should be for the cost of the car!

I pity anyone buying a C, B or A class as the skimping on build quality on those is just dreadful!

I bought a new C class last year, one year in I've had two issues. First was a defective rear door seal and the second was the diamond cut alloys began to corrode. Both replaced under warranty no questions asked.
Other than that it's a great car compared its Range Rover predecessor which had far more design/build quality issues.

Also, I'm led to believe that build quality has vastly improved over recent years which I think you've mentioned in the past.
For me time will tell I guess.....

Nik

Yeah sorry I should have said that I meant buying secondhand. Recently things have improved quite a bit especially with the bodywork.

The only thing I would say is that your diamond cut alloys will corrode again. It's not the wheels themselves it's the diamond cutting and lacquering. It just doesn't worlk with UK roads (constantly wet and salty)... the water gets under the lacquer on the diamond curring and that is that.

See if you can get them poweder coated next time under warranty as that will solve it even if it doesn't give quite as bright a finish.

Yes you're right about the wheels, plenty about them on the net.
I had the original set (10 months old) changed a couple of weeks ago and I was assured the new set would be fine :cuckoo:
Knowing what I did I questioned it and as a result they assured me if in the unlikely event they did corrode they'll replace all again so i left it at that.

Nik.

No worries, it's a shame as they do look great when they are new. :thumb:

I think manufacturers like Audi, BMW and Mercedes came to the stark realisation that over engineering their cars wasn't profitable on two fronts, one being the extra manufacturing costs and two lack of spare parts sales so affecting main dealer profitability.

I had an Audi GT way back when ( bloody hell just realised it's almost 30yrs ago :eek: ) 4yrs of driving it like a complete maniac with absolutely no mechanical sympathy, But in my defence I was 19 at the time :Suspiciou only thing I replaced was a water pump for £17, no chance of doing that today.

Although I have had 3/4 mercs and I do like them also had no problems with them but they were all quite old, I wouldn't dare buy a newer version.

The problem, with newer BMWs and VAGs is there is so many electronics inside of them that there is so much more on them to go wrong. Its not totally intentional, its just they tried too go too far too quick and too cheaply.

The fact alot of of stuff is done via software instead of hard-wired logic control combined with simulated testing IMO gives a wider scope for errors to seep through to the consumer as testing isn't as thorough - much like computer programming, once high level code is compiled and translated to machine code unexpected things can happen that were not forseen in simulations......A crude example of these "coding bugs" is Peugeots that gained mileage everytime the car's control systems was woken from its "sleep" state.

The result is cars needs updates just like your PC, Mac, or Phone.

Thats "moving forward" for you. :rolleyes:

The thing is its all about detail, and how far one has to go to perfect it....

Take a VW Golf MK5 (and same generation Audi A3, A2, VW transporter etc) central locking motor. They are quality items....but, they are unreliable as one component lets them down...the Scalextric type motors (made by Johnson or Mabuchi ) that powers it. Or to be more precise the gearing of the motors that means it only fulfils 2 turns from lock to unlock. The motor doesn't like that; its commutator gums up and it loses torque. So your door stops locking/unlocking. I can strip it down and fix it (just need to let the motors run in free air for a while), most garages replace them with the same lock with the same motors that still never get the chance for the commutator and brushes to bed-in properly, so a few years on teh problem comes back....some guy running simulations on a computer in a design lab would never ever realise this. Except someone at Seat maybe...the locks on the same generation Leons use different gearing so the motor turns more and needs less torque...or maybe they were just lucky?

Although with regards to moving forward. Mercesdes have been a bit behind the curve. At one point during their worst part of the Chrysler era they were technologically ten years behind other German manufacturers, when beforehand they were at the forefront. For example, we have a 1982 500SEC AMG in the workshop...electronic Anti-lock brakes (almost unheard of in other carsat that time), 4 speed autobox (most autos back then only had 3 gears), and lots of other mod cons that were non existant on any other car made in 1982. Its been stood for several years without being used....fuel pump had seized (that's modern moisture absorbing petrol for you), I fitted a new pump and it fired straight up. Everything works. The main things wrong is corrosion underneath on the suspension and exhaust from the elements, perished fuel lines (re: modern petrol) and a leaky sunroof. Credit where credit is due, its a tough old thing - I can't think of any other car that would survive the test of time as well as this one.

If it were a modern merc...the leaky sunroof would have rotted the CAN-B connectors in the front footwells causing electronic mayhem....and there lies a expensive lesson...never park a Merc SL with the roof down when rain is forecast ;)

Doesn't really matter Ali, most of the roofs and boots leak anyway ;)

When I bought mine I asked the dealer if it needed any special treatment... he said, yes garaging when the weather is wet :D

In all seriousness mmine is spot on but only because I replaced all the seals at vast cost!

Thanks for the help, didnt find any cables in the footwell after removing the plate and sound proofing, got the boot open by using pliers on the key.:)