My wife has a '98 Toyota 4Runner with 3.4L V6. It has 139,000 miles and has NEVER had ANY repairs or parts failures of any kind until now. It has had preventive maintenance and wiring repair due to damage not the fault of the car.

The a/c stopped cooling a few weeks ago. The sight glass was clear, so I at first discounted the possibility of a refrigeration problem and started looking for damper problems or heater flow error. I finally put gauges on and found a heavy vacuum on the low side and only 100PSI on the high. It appeared that the expansion valve failed.

I was down trodden once discovering this and learning that the evaporator had to come out to replace the expansion valve. There goes a couple of days to remove and replace.

I got an early start on Saturday morning and found that the evaporator unit was designed to come out VERY EASILY. Two screws for the glove box, three for the glove box brace, three for the cover above the glove box, two connectors on the evaporator unit and five on the evaporator unit itself and then just pull. This was, of course, after disconnecting the high and low lines in the engine compartment that were easily accessible.

I was done to the point of beginning system evacuation in about an hour and fifteen minutes. The other nice thing was that at no time was I upside down with feet sticking out the window while doing this. It was all extremely accessible.

I can only say how thankful I am that it was her Rice Grinder that needed the evaporator removed and replaced instead of my 124 car. The only saving grace with most MB's is that the expansion valve can usually be replaced without removing the evaporator, but I've never had an expansion valve fail on an MB.

It's kind of ironic that the cars with evaporators that commonly fail are the ones with evaporators that are difficult to remove and replace.

I still, however, believe that burying an evaporator or heater core such as it is in a 124 car, borders on being an engineering crime.

Have a great day,

Larry, it doesn't border, it IS an engineering crime!

8^)

Brian

Larry said: "I still, however, believe that burying an evaporator or heater core such as it is in a 124 car, borders on being an engineering crime."

Thanks for sharing, Larry. I agree completely. I sold my 300E rather than replace the evaporator. The A/C in that car was nothing but trouble.

__________________
Rick Miley
2014 Tesla Model S
2018 Tesla Model 3
2017 Nissan LEAF
Former MB: 99 E300, 86 190E 2.3, 87 300E, 80 240D, 82 204D Euro
Chain Elongation References

In the "Mercedes Benz Buyers Guide" they warn of the terrible a/c and climate control system in the 124 cars. They also say that the excellence of the rest of the car makes the a/c problems worth living with.

Were the a/c system on these cars easier to deal with when it does break, it would make the problems much more pallatable. (sp?)

Generally speaking I agree with this to a point. While in the drivers seat of the 124 car with the a/c working properly, it is an amazing automobile. Now that I have almost 240,000 miles on the car, however, it is not holding up nearly as well as did my 123 cars.

Have a great day,

Mercedes' engineers begin their CAD process with a pictorial of the AC evaporator, and then build the rest of the car around it. On some models, they begine with the blower fan and the evaporator, and then build around.

The blower motor on our C230 went out, and I watched the tech change it. (Warranty job) What a snap! Maybe MB does learn as they go...?

__________________
John Shellenberg
1998 C230 "Black Betty" 240K

http://img31.exs.cx/img31/4050/tophat6.gif

I will be doing the rotors/pads/shoes on the Honda over the next week or so and based on reviewing the manual it looks pretty straight forward. Fortunately, I hardly ever have to do anything to it (I had the dealer replace the timing belt). It is showing right at 127k and this is the first time the rotors have been replaced which I consider to be really good life out of a set. I guess I could measure them and see if they just need turning.

__________________
Jim

my daily workhorse is an 84 toyota minivan
with 230k miles on the clock, all original - tranny,
cat converter, and all major components, except
for the a/c, which i believe needs R12 freon but no
longer is available here in canada.

bought it brand new in houston, texas, and have gone
through all of my four teenage boys.

__________________
joel

Prayers bring forth enlightenment.

Hi Larry,
I too have had exceptionally good luck with a toyota product, in my case a 1980 Corolla. It ran me and my son over 300K with absolutely no engine problems at all. (Not counting the starter and alternater as engine problems, had to replace both of them.) It's AC system, although pretty basic, worked very well. The car I really like the dash design on, though, is the 240/260/280Z series of Datsuns - we had three of them over the years, and I was amazed to find that the dash was COMPLETELY pluggable! The entire wiring harness unplugged, the dash unscrewed, and you could remove the whole thing in under two hours! That left all of the heater/AC completely exposed, although most of it was accessible without pulling the dash. The remarkable thing was that everything was made so it wouldn't rattle. They even used stainless steel screws on the inner fender liner attach points so they could be removed after years of road crud built up on them. If only they weren't such rollerskates we would still be driving them instead of having one parked in the garage - my '82 300D/4.3L V6 is a truly comfortable car to drive, almost as good as the Jag XJ6L. It only has one rattle, which is the wood trim around the bottom of the climate controls, and if I rap it sharply it stops for a week or two.
Probably the very worst car in terms of dash accessiblity was our '75 280C, which my son has now - it took me almost a week of cursing, walking around the car, removing the seats, the AC evaporator, the heater core, etc. to replace the heater fan, which apparently was the first item installed before building the dash and heater/AC around it.
I have a new project in the garage, by the way - I'm installing a new engine in my son's '71 Dodge Camper MaxiVan - it has a raised fiberglass top, built in bathroom, etc, but the old carbureted engine is worn out. I found a real nice '91 Dodge Van with TBI fuel injection and overdrive transmission, so am cutting the front of each about halfway up the front windshield posts, and just in front of the drivers seats, and am exchanging them. That way the '71 will have the '91 dash and all the new wiring for the TBI Fuel injection system, easier in my opinion than trying to put all that stuff in the old '71 front. Just a day or so of careful measuring, cutting, and welding, plus a small amount of body work to make it look good again.

You have a good day also, and KEEP KOOL!

Richard Wooldridge
'82 300D/4.3L V6
'77 Jag XJ6
'77 280Z
'94 Ford Taurus (New head gaskets, new VSS sensor)
'89 Astrovan
'85 GMC S15, Firebird engine
'65 Clark Cortez motorhome, Caddie 403 engine/FWD
'71 Honda CT90
'88 Kubota G5200 3 cyl. DIESEL Lawn/garden tractor, 600cc
etc...

Yoda makes a good car but they have their issues as well, 3.0 headgaskets, 2.5 camry piston slap, valve bodys slamming reverse, we were pulliing 93 camrys off the truck with blown oil pump o-rings, head gasket and valvecover leaks, Lexus eats IC's, shortblocks in 3.0 and 3.4 trucks, egr passages stopping up, and thi list goes on.

I dont cae who builds it, something is gonna break.


I do think MB took a evap, hung it from the ceiling by a coat hanger and assembled the car around it. the cut the hanger off. However, once you get used to 'em, they really aint bad to do. When you look at product cost to product cost, then look at the percentage of repair cost versus product cost MB is right in line. Afterall a $2500 dollar repair on a 25K car is outragous but a $2500 repair on a 50k car is more in line.



Joe

__________________
Project Smoker, '87 603 powered wagon
Hauler, 96 CTD can you say torque?
Toy 73 Cougar xr7 convertible
Acme Automotive Inc.
Raleigh NC
919-881-0364

You will notice that the title of my thread mentions "One Category." I do not consider a Toyota, overall, to be superior to MB. Ease of access for changing the evaporator is, however, vastly superior to a 124 MB.

It was NOT my intention to post a Toyota commercial although I am very pleased that the car has been trouble free as it has been.

Have a great day,

Did anyone see the latest [car] edition of Consumer Reports. They basically state that any Honda or Toyota product will out-perform any other car on the market as far as build quality is concerned. I do have to agree with them in that those cars rarely break (in my experience), but for people passionate about cars, like most of us on this board are, they just aren't cars you can bond with. I owned an Acura once, and while it was a nice car, I never felt right about it, and sold it a month later. Spending time with that car felt like being on a bad date! On the other hand, I love my 300D and 300CE, and I feel whatever additional maintanence that is required is worth the driving/ownership satisfaction I get.

GregS
'84 300D, 173k
'90 300CE, 162k

I'm on my 3rd Benz, a 98 e430. I'd have to say that I probably won't ever buy another brand of car. My first was a 92 400e and it had 137K on it when I bought it. I drove it for a year, put an engine harness on it, and put 50K miles on it, and sold it for what I paid for it. It had 187K miles on it so that taught me about MB relaibility. My second one was a 95e 320, a bit underpowered after the 400e, but nice and rock solid none the less. I drove it for less than a year and made 3K on it. So who ever says MB can't be affordable was wrong.

I currently own a 93 Toyota Camry and while it is a good car it isn't that great. It has 129,300 on it and is on it's 3rd timeing belt. It also leaks a lot of oil. I have replaced the valve cover gasket, and oil cooler gaskets to try to seal some of the leaks, and have been successful so far. But the oil pan still leaks and the rear main seal is leaking. It has also needed a bunch of other stuff but most was age related. Although it still runs very well, my moms Olds. was dieing at 100K. I don't realy like it and can't wait to replace it this summer with a nice 300SDL.

I have two Toyota's right now plus the resurrection job 300E. It's hard to make a fair comparison of our 2000 Camry XLE V-6 to a 15 year old 124, but with all of the 124's old age issues it is still a really nice car. We had a 1998 Accord that we sold after 30K miles, it was so noisy on the road but it handled well. My sympathies went out to the next owner who had the auto tranny go out on her just after warranty at 60k miles. The car was serviced religously. If its mechanical, it will break eventually. I had the whole air cleaner assembly off the 300E over the weekend. I took one look and said to myself "what a freakin' mess!" No wonder they put that big air cleaner housing over all these pipes and tubes, and that nutty fuel distributor! I look under the hood of my 2001 Tundra 32V V8 and admire its simplicity and uncluttered cabin. I've had more than my fair share of a/c problems with the 300E, but not the evaporator. I asked my independent guy about the evaporators and he told me that in over 25 years of MB specializing he's never had to replace one. I sure as hell hope mine is not the first.

'87 Accord - 267,000 miles

'83 Toyota Pickup - 306,000 miles

In both cases neither has ever failed to start or has ever broken down. Original starters and alternators still in place on both.

I love my MB, but.......