Test driving a 500E with weird shudder
 

So, I love my 300E but I want more power (having had a 420 loaner for a while, I'm now spoiled). So, I found this 500E and took it for a test drive today.

FUN! Power, and it's a W124 (my favorite body by far, but the replacement has grown on me too). Digressing.

When pulling out of parking lots right off idle it would studder, stumble. I could not say for sure if it was massive trans shudder or engine stumble but I'm thinking the trans is really worn out. Too many burnouts? In one thread the ASR was mentioned as having some strange side effects and wondered if it might be freaked out and causing this to happen.

Doing some reading it seems like the tranny is not a special unit and shared with the larger S class 500 cars so I'm thinking if I need to have the trans rebuilt it would not be a 'major' parts hassle. Thus my post.

Those that do this sort of work, what would I expect to pay (drop off car and pickup) for a trans rebuilt barring any unual parts requireing replacement.

About 6 years ago another 300E of mine lost a $100 servo inside the trans but it cost $2500 to have it repaired (trans rebuilt by a small mom-and-pop MBZ shop in Roseville CA).

I'm I insane to negotiate a couple grand off the car for the trans, drop it off at a trans shop and tell them to 'FIX IT'?? Neat car, color I want, interior in good shape and everything else seemd to work well. Could not spot any leaks.

Soliciting some feedback on test-drive diagnosis tricks to narrow down the true problem and some idea of what it would cost to fix if the tranny is going south.

TIA!!

If it were me, I would take it to a reputable dealer for an "Inspection for Purchase". You'll pay a couple of hours in labor but well worth it. Not only will you get a list of anything that is wrong, you've also got a bargaining tool.

Haasman

Ah, OK. That sounds like a good idea. I just remembered that there is a Mercedes dealership about 10 miles away from the dealer that has this 500. They should be able to run a diag to see if it's an ASR or trans problem I'd assume.

the m-119 V-8 engines can develop a hesitation, like the car is missing.

if you drive it again and it acts this way pull over and shut off the car. after a minute re-start and see how it responds now.

check to see if cruise control works and if compressor engages.

is car almost out of gas? maybe if tank is low, all the crap got thrown around while car was being put through its paces.


also ALL the V8 main engine wiring harness' degrade do to chintzy grade wiring. when this happens weird electrical gremlins can occur-things go wrong because of a short or hiccup, NOT because the particular system failed.

wiring harness' are about $600.00 part only

another thought is car needs [desperately] new caps and rotors, plugs, etc

do a "search" for hesitation at 500Ecstasy.com

what are car specifics?

what kind of place is selling the car?

I told them to service and check it out after I test drove it. I got a call this morning at 10:00am from them saying it seemed that the car had not been driven in a while and it was not warmed up because the problem went away.

I drove an hour to test drive it again today, this time for about 1/2 an hour in all types of driving (other than receiving a speeding ticket, I was not able to test out that scenario today). Worked flawlessly, so we made a deal. It's supposed to be delivered here this evening.

A Nissan dealer, so it's not one of those sleeze-ball wholesale lots and it has a lot less milage than my 300E does (which I kept).

Thanks for the input! I'll be driving the wheels off it tonight and see if there is anything I need to have repaired ASAP. I listened for chain slap and did not hear any but I'll keep an ear out for that and get anything resolved before I put my 300 up for sale.

Thing goes like a scalded cat.. that's fun! Plus the fenders are a lot more flared out than those on the 300. As long as it does not break-down on the way from the dealership tonight I'll post a photo of it later on. I hope I don't regret this in next few days! :silly:

Well, it's home now. Drove it back 50 miles in near freezing temps (the traction control is a neat thing when accelerating uphill on a frozen onramp)

Here there are side-by-side. The 500E (other than the fact that body is just awesome in a dark color) is just one really tough looking car. So far I'm glad I took a gamble on this one. Ran like a scalded cat all the way home and not hint of the shudder/stumble again today. When she sit's overnight here we'll see because they had the car warmed up by the time I got there.

Very nice car. One of my alltime favorite M-B's.
Good luck with it. ;)

Thanks! I think I will need it, as I just found the 'hidden' problem that I suspected was somewhere in the car. Right side marker lights, dash and license light circuit has a short (blew two fuses). Hmrmf. Of course all my test drives were during the daytime, and why I never thought to check to see if the dashlights came on, never occured to me (checked flashers, brakes what not). Ugh. Dumb me.

So I'm looking for the short. One part of this curcuit runs into the trunk lid so I'm hoping (praying really) that the wire cross is in there and I can patch that and be done with it. I'm scanning the Tech sections on wiring shorts now to see where there might be other areas of common failure that would cause this curcuit to short out.

It's odd (to me) that the right side markers, dash, controls, license plate light are on the same cicuit (but left is not, likely why it never occured to me.. I looked at left but not right.. duh). :mad:

But it runs/drives really really nice so... I can drive it with an LED flashlight on the dashboard for illumination while I work on this (I don't need the car as a daily driver so I can take my time).