ml320 Shakes & Loses Power
 

My wifes 99 ml320 has started acting up. Lately, when my wife drives the vehicle it will start shaking and will lose power. This happens when the vehicle is warm and it happens only occassionally. When it happens she pulls over, turns the vehicle off and restarts. Then it drives fine and she may go 100 miles before this happens again. The last time this occurred the check engine light blinked. This problem first happened three weeks ago and since then the check engine light has been on.

We love this vehicle and have had no problems over the last 40,000 miles. Currently, the vehicle has 77,000 miles on it.

Any help diagnosing this problem wouild be greatly appreciated.

Mark

If the check engine light is ( was ) on, the computer will have stored a fault code.
Go to the dealer, have them scan the computer, retrieve the stored code & that will tell you ( them ), what the likely problem is. ;)
When you turn the engine off & re-start it, the computer starts from " square one " again.

My friend just recently went through this with his 1998 ML320 with only 40k original miles.

He took it to Towson Valley Mercedes-Benz in Hunt Valley, Maryland and they spent about 30 hours trying to find the problem. They never could find what it was. $1500.00 later they recommended that he replace the entire engine!

He then took the ML to a long time friend of ours that is currently an out of work mechanic who has a scantool. He found it was a coil pack in th ematter of about an hour of diagnosing. They replaced one of the coil packls and it seems to be OK now.

I have no idea why the idiots at the dealerhship could not find the problem, but it does not surprise me. I had a back experience with that dealership 4 years ago with my C43 and I will never go back to them. Whatever anyone does, avoid Towson Valley in MD!

So, you may want to look at the coil packs...