Hi All,

I finally took the Benz back to my local garage wher I spent a hundred dollars getting the diagnosis of a bad MAF last tiime. After I put the new MAF on and reset the CEL, it came back on the next day. Well, I didn't want to admit to my wife or anyone else that I just wasted $280, so I kind of ignored the light until today when I took the car backt to the garage and had them re-diagnose the problem with the aid of the car's repair history from the MB dealer where it had been maintained for the last 10 years. The histor documented the replacement of the MAF, vacuum manifold block and both O2 sensors in the previous few months, prior to my purchasing the car. Thiese records and checking the values for these components verified that these were not the culprit. So, my mechanic (a very smart and experienced mechanic) checked the fuel regulator, vacuum hoses, etc. and he kept getting negative values for the fuel trim, even though everything seemed to check out OK. He told me that all the obvious things checked out OK. He said the next round of checks would be in the "network and chips" and would require another 2 hours of time. He said if the car was running OK (and it is), that he believes the computer is getting bogus numbers or it wouldn't be running OK. He didn't think it would hurt the car to keep operating it with the CEL on, until I wanted to spend the $ to have the rest of the diagnosis done.

Comments please! I love this car, but I don't want to live at the garage while they try to unravel this mystery.

Big Lar - not smiling.