'85 300D (271K) The other day I was on my way to work and after about 20 minutes of driving, I was about 1/4 mile from my work and I noticed that the vehicle started shifting hard. When I parked it and went to shut it off, it didn't shut off right away. After about 5 seconds it shut off. Then when I exited the vehicle and went to lock the doors I noticed that the central locking system was barely working. I thought to myself, "Just what I need--a vacuum problem!"

Well when I left for the evening, it started up fine, shifted fine, shut off fine and locked fine. As a matter of fact, it has been working fine for 3 days now.

Is this one instance of vacuum problem, something that I should be concerned with? It was raining heavily that day and I did have my usual puddle in the rear passenger footwell. Does the vacuum lines run along the footwell raceway with the electrical lines?

Thanks guys!

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FrankieZ
84 500SEL EURO 87K
85 300D 267K (and still goin' strong)

[This message has been edited by fz500sel (edited 06-07-2000).]

The vacuam lines do run through the rear floorboard, but I can't imagine that causing the problem you described.

BTW I dealt with back floorboard water after rainstorms for years. Finally thanks to this forum, I cleaned out the drain ports under the hoodhinges and just inboard from there with a piece of baling wire (for city people, a coathanger would probably suffice) and have yet to have reoccurrence of the problem.

Good luck,

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Larry Bible
'84 Euro 240D, 523K miles
'88 300E 5 Speed
'81 300D Daughter's Car
Over 800,000 miles in
Mercedes automobiles

It sounds as if you have the check valve in the vacuum pump starting to fail. It is the one that the brake booster vacuum line attatches to.

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Benzmac:
Donnie Drummonds
1992 500E (very soon I hope :)
1981 280GE SWB
ASE CERTIFIED MASTER AUTO TECHNICIAN
SERVICE MANAGER FOR 14 BAY FACILITY
MERCEDES SPECIALIST 8 YRS
PARTNER IN MERCEDESSHOP.COM