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  #1  
Old 12-30-2001, 10:39 AM
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Thumbs down Shame on you, Mercedes. CLK 55 could not drive on the street or racetrack.

In today's Car and Driver TV show on TNN, they exclusively showed the Super Tuner challenge in The Michigan International Speedway. Read more at http://caranddriver.com/xp/Caranddriver/comparisontests/2001/September/supertuner/200109_st_challenge_intro.xml

Six cars participated and Mercedes sent a RENNtech CLK60SC ( a tuned 2001 CLK50).

MB drivers, do not feel embarrassed if you keep reading because many of you have had the same experience (thus owner certainly has).

Before the race, all six cars went on a street drive. About a mile into it, the Mercedes fried a Mass Air-flow Sensor (sound familiar, M104 owners?). A Car and Driver employee commented on something like "a 5 cent part disabled the $100,000 car". The stupid Mercedes Driver looked up his part's price and said "$200 dollars, Borsch, expensive".

On the race day, the Mercedes took its first run but (sadly or gladly) it did not finish because a faulty wiring harness fried the onboard computer (sound familiar, M104 owners?). So it was not even ranked as it could not even participated in the challenge.

The winner was a Corvett.

Shame on you, Daimler-Chrysler!!! Do not deny your cars do not have Mass Air-flow Sensor and Wiring harness problems. Your $100,000 car won't even drive, either on the street or on the race track.

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  #2  
Old 12-30-2001, 11:46 AM
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Thumbs down

MURPHY'S LAW AMPLIFIED.
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126 tailed by a 203, 129 leading the pack.
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  #3  
Old 12-30-2001, 11:53 AM
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MURPHY'S LAW, what is that?

The law of constant failure of Mass Air-flow Sensor, wiring harness, and head gasket in Mercedes M104 eingines?
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  #4  
Old 12-30-2001, 01:13 PM
roas
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That Renntech car is not very old, the problems you mentioned loubapache usually only show up after many many miles and many many years of regular use.

Murphy's Law for sure IMHO, that car has probably been beat on just as hard if not harder due to Renntechs's founders lead foot (forgot his name?). I'm also pretty sure mechanical failure is not par for for such a creation as well.

Hope the next appearance this car makes wipes up the competition!
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  #5  
Old 12-30-2001, 01:22 PM
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Next time, its head gasket will blow. Or maybe the radiator neck.
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  #6  
Old 12-30-2001, 05:00 PM
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Or, the driver can't here the start gun because of the engine damp. shock is clicking so loudly!

Nothin' like a Benz. Gotta love em.

don
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  #7  
Old 12-30-2001, 05:28 PM
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I watched the show while I was taking a break from putting the 240D engine back together. There would have never been a problem like the CLK60 on a 300D or 240D .
Of all of the ars that were on the show I liked the Porsche the best.
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  #8  
Old 12-30-2001, 07:53 PM
Mallory
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OUCH!
This coming a year after all the problems MB had with their racecars doing backflips at the track!
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  #9  
Old 12-30-2001, 08:07 PM
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Mallory:

At least the racecars you mentioned can backflips. This Renntech CLK60 cannot even move, on the street or on the track.

Really embarrassing for our MB owners but to MB it is probably just another "customer, so what?". The tires must be filled with German air.
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  #10  
Old 12-31-2001, 04:02 AM
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I don't get why MBZ is getting the bad rep here. Renntech is an independent tuner and thus solely responsible for the failure of their own tuned and thus screwed up car. They are , to my knowledge in no way sponsored, assiciated with or endorsed by Daimler-Chrysler and this is in no way a MBZ failure.
If MBZ had sent a car, they most assuredly would have sent the very same AMG CLK 55 that kicks the competition's asses at the DTM in Germany and it would have been a completely different picture, I am sure of that.
For some reason MBZ is not really paying the same attention to racing events in the US as they do in Europe or specifically Germany, where something like the described event would have been close to impossible with MBZ being involved.
And sure the CLR backflipped and failed Le Mans, but the GTR sure has everybody else looking at its rear end only. The three cars sent to enter races do after all finish first through third pretty much wherever they appear and make the entire competition look rather incompetent.
Personally I can only laugh at Renntech for screwing up their reputation even further. I guess the next best thing after AMG would be Brabus or Lorinser for an intependently tuned Benz and even those I personally dont trust too much. They are after all not sending any cars to compete with the AMG's and other german makes in the DTM races.
Just my thoughts.
F.J.
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81 300 SD grey/palomino 168K miles
84 190E 2.3 black/grey 64K miles (wrecked)
85 190E 2.3 maroon/palomino 92K miles
88 300E desert red/palomino 204k miles
(made to look like a '94-95)
92 400E desert taupe/creme beige 120K miles
(converted to 94-95 E420 looks)
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  #11  
Old 12-31-2001, 07:47 AM
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I'd have to agree with F.J. Renntech is an independent tuner. MB should not be held responsible for some performance modified (mechanically and electronically) CLK60, CLK50. The only one to blame here is Renntech.
BTW, wire harness problems are usually associated with early 104 and some 119 engines. Even in these cases it takes many years of heat and fatigue for them to deteriorate.

Vin
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  #12  
Old 12-31-2001, 09:29 AM
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I beg to differ.

The car has the three-pointed star on it and it is a Mercedes, regardless of who tuned it.

A few years ago, Mercedes used a push-rod engine to win the Indy 500. The engine had nothing to do with Mercedes (I believe it was built by some company here in Michigan). But after Mercedes won, it was all over the place and its sales jumped. If I had to guess, it must have been in the 94 or 95 era as it somehow coincided with the new C-class, if I remember correctly.

Credit or responsibility, take it, Mercedes, as the car has your badge.
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  #13  
Old 12-31-2001, 09:30 AM
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I forgot to say, this is not really a "racing" event. All cars must use gasoline that is available at gas stations and all cars are street legal.
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  #14  
Old 12-31-2001, 01:37 PM
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You've got a point loubapache, but somebody's been messing with it other than authorized MBZ people and the car was not sponsored by MBZ, so in my book MBZ is out of responibility's reach.
And vinamg is completely right, harness failure on M104's and M119's occurs due to prolonged exposure to heat after reasonable periods of time. My M119 is gonna be 10 years and 120k miles young in January and I can now start to see that a replacement of the harness will become necessary some time in the near future. This car has been treated well, but also driven reasonably hard and lasted this long and will go a lot further and continue to be an exceptional "autobahn" runner.

The whole point being, this Renntech car is most likely equipped with a modified engine from the modular family, unless they are doing the same thing as AMG does in the DTM and run a 4 valve engine in their cars as well and is thus quite very different from M104's and M119's, so I dont see why the M104 gets a bad rep here.
We also dont know how they have treated that poor car and since it failed so badly, my guess is it was not standard MBZ treatment it received.
To round my argument up, MBZ has always been, since the first automobile racing events and always will be a major, if not the force to be reckoned with in any racing event they participate in. After all the 190E dominated the DTM's in the late 80's and early 90's and was unbeatable in its class during the last years of its production run. How may manufacturers of automobiles can pull close to 400HP out of a naturally aspirated 4, take a street legal chassis and slap above mentioned engine and a cage in, modify the suspension and, bang.... you have a killer racer?
The C-Class did pretty much the same and kicked M3 ass almost as bad as the 190 did and they are doing it now with the CLK again. There also is the F1 team with a car and engine that perform exceptionally well and some say is way superior to the Ferrari, all we need is Michael or Ralf behind the wheel and it will be unstoppable. The CLK-GTR was developed with AMG in Spain in a mere 187 days and went on to become the king of supercars of our period. Forget about the F50, that streetversion is bad, I tell you that.
Also we dont want to forget about the legendary silver arrows, 300SLR, C-111, 300SEL 6.0, 450SEL 6.9 Euro and of course the mighty 500E and many other exceptional sports and racecars.
If Mercedes sets things in motion to build a mean racing machine we are going to see results in any case. If some dumb tuner takes their creation and screws it up to a point of ludicrousness as seen in the discussed event, then holding MBZ reponsible for it is rather shortsighted, I would say. The three pointed star does not belong on that car, that much is certain.
Brabus is at least responsible enough to rebagde their cars with their own symbols, unfortunately Renntech does not and thus merely hides behind the great silver star, trying to do exactly what they succeeded with in your case, divert blame of their own failure to somebody else, MBZ. We are after all talking about the company that started the whole industry here and keeps on redefining it like nobody else. MBZ has been, is and most likely will be the industry leader in automobiles for a long time to come and failures like that come extrememly rare with the inventor of the automobile. If they do, like the CLR at Le Mans or the 300SL back in the 50's, it merely illustrates the point that nobody is perfect, but does nothing really to diminish the reputation of Mercedes-Benz automobiles, as they will come back improved and better than ever.
I dont mean to offend anyone. but with just a few exceptions, most of the responses in this thread, to me sounded like a bunch of rice rocket people *****ing about the superiority of the mighty Benzes and perhaps I completely missed the point, but this is just my opinion. I grew up in Germany seeing MBZ's race at least once a month and no argument will tell me they do not know how to build a race car or fail that stupidly with a tuned street car.
MBZ vehicles of any time and period are argueably the best cars money can buy! The rare exception, reconfirms this rule beautifully and Renntech clearly show us not to buy from them, but go to an authorized dealer instead.

Happy New Year (Frohes Neues Jahr und 'nen guten Rutsch!) and happy MBZ motoring (and in whatever offspring of one you might be riding in) to everybody!
F.J.
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81 300 SD grey/palomino 168K miles
84 190E 2.3 black/grey 64K miles (wrecked)
85 190E 2.3 maroon/palomino 92K miles
88 300E desert red/palomino 204k miles
(made to look like a '94-95)
92 400E desert taupe/creme beige 120K miles
(converted to 94-95 E420 looks)

Last edited by F.J.Lahme; 12-31-2001 at 01:55 PM.
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  #15  
Old 12-31-2001, 02:06 PM
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<<
After all the 190E dominated the DTM's in the late 80's and early 90's and was unbeatable in its class during the last years of its production run. How may manufacturers of automobiles can pull close to 400HP out of a naturally aspirated 4, take a street legal chassis and slap above mentioned engine and a cage in, modify the suspension and, bang.... you have a killer racer?
>>

Are you talking about the 2,3-liter 16 valve? Here is that 4-banger's specs:

Bhp: 185 (DIN) at 6200 rpm. Where is your 400 HP from?

<<
With a few exceptions, most of the responses in this thread, to me sounded like a bunch of rice rocket people *****ing about the superiority of the mighty Benzes and perhaps I completely missed the point, but this is just my opinion.
>>

Point being, Mercedes has problems with the MAS and wiring harness, head gasket, etc. in their cars en mass, but fail to admit that or take any responsibility.

If you do a search for the above three things I mentioned on this forum, you get tons of responses. The Renntech is just one manifestation of that. Do you think the Renntech people intentionally put in faulty MAS and wiring harness into that car to be embarrassed? Of course not. These components themselves, their location under the hood, and other things are not designed right.

How many modern auto manufactures would think replacing a head gasket is a routine maintainance??? The owners on this board of the M103 and M104 engines can fill up this forum.

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