Mercedes Engine : BadnGood News + Recovery

First the bad news:

My October 2011 registered Malvern came out of Mercedes warranty on 5th Oct last.  Just a few days prior to that I had Mercedes conduct a full service at 17673 miles.

On Tuesday 30th around 1100hrs, en-route for New Year in Scotland and just north of the A66 on the M6, the engine emitted white smoke and on pulling over sounded as though it had a bag of nails in each cylinder having done 850 miles since the service.

I called the Caravan Club Mayday service (used because they have no restriction on size or weight and will recover you from being stuck in a field) and asked for assistance.  Because we were on the hard shoulder they identified us a priority but explained they were overloaded and it could take 2 hrs for assistance to reach us.

After an hour a tow truck turned up, the type that lifts the front wheels on a little platform.  The driver agreed there was a problem and advised he would take us to his depot at Carlisle for investigation.  I pointed out that as my van was both rear wheel drive and automatic his vehicle could not do that – he agreed and called for another truck!  At least the next hour was spent in the relative warmth of his cab.

About 1300 the next truck turned up and the first departed.

A little digression, during the recovery process I find there are two methods of loading vehicles onto recovery trucks.  One pushes the load bed to the back and then pivots the back down to the road allowing the vehicle to be winched on, albeit at a steep angle.  The other virtually demounts the load bed onto the road and winches the vehicle on at a much shallower angle.  With the first I found that wooden blocks were needed to give additional clearance to stop the back of my body scraping the road.  I’ve seen a 2012 Malvern that, to allow the fitting of a spare wheel, has the fresh water tank fitted across and right at the back of the body and that could not have been loaded on this type of truck.

We were loaded on the truck and taken to the Carlisle depot ‘just up the road’ – 27 miles getting there about 1415.  After about 30 minutes with a test unit and hammer as diagnostic tools I was advised there was a fuel problem that Mercedes would have to investigate and they couldn’t look at it till the next day.  As we had the cats in the van we had to abandon our trip and ask to be taken home.  On leaving the depot we were told that we would be transferred to another truck at Jcn 36, there was nothing to be achieved by arguing se we were dropped on the road (can’t go on the drive) in -6°C at 2030.  Cats and essentials in the house and no way to get power to the van so it had to be drained then and there!!

It starts to get better:

After a virtually sleepless night (cold and tummy bug didn’t help) I rang Mayday again at 0745 new years eve with a very tongue in cheek request to be taken to Stoke Mercedes dealer.  No problem at all and by 0900 was on the back of a truck with a demountable load bed on the way to the dealer.  A very nice driver (different contracting company from yesterday) who explained the reason for changing truck was that to do with drivers hours regulations and the need to use a tachograph if over 60 miles from your depot.  The van was booked in at Mercedes and I understood it would not be investigated till after the new year holiday.

Better still:

1300 2nd January a call to say the van was ready for collection….????  What was the problem?..All the fuel injectors have been replaced.  How much is that going to cost?...nothing, Mercedes are paying.  I went to collect the van and whilst being grateful for the very prompt attention and zero cost wondered what could have caused the problem?  I got a bit of fluff but no answer.

Summary:

Mercedes then are a bit like Autosleeper, they are not perfect and things do go wrong but the customer service is exemplary.

Peter

List of what they replaced, total cost of service (including mot) just under £400.  I've never worked on a diesel engine (and am 30 years out of date on petrol) so don't know what to look for.  That said I'm sure I would work it out but the temperature needs to be 20° higher before I go to look!

Peter

I'm sure if there was any concern about the quality fuel in the van the Mercedes would not have paid for the repair and they would have told me that the half tank left was of concern.

As this thread is not about fuel quality I don't want to go there.

Peter

Update:

We've been away for the weekend in the van. Just over 100 miles each way and you wouldn't know there had been a problem with the engine. I'm also happy to report that all the habitation equipment survived the multiple loading/unloading from recovery vehicles.

Peter