I have a 1997 C230 that will develope a misfire after driving a few miles and while driving down the road I can turn the ignition off and back on and the misfire will correct itself but only for a short time. This happened for about a year now, but now the misfire is constant. Also the check engine light is on.
I read on another forum that the timing chain could cause a misfire and after engine is turned off and restarted the misfire will correct itself for a little while.
Any help is greatly appreciated.

Go read the CEL code and report back with the answer, otherwise no one will be able to provide you with any help without knowing the code as it could be many things. Welcome to the forum.

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1990 190E 3.0L

Cars of that era will shut off a specific injector if the computer detects a repeated miss fire. This is done to prevent raw fuel from damaging the cat converter.

Timing chain issues won't cause this problem.

Ignition coil / plug wires are a common source of a missfire in higher mileage cars of that era. Reading the trouble code then swapping coils and wires around will help in pin pointing the failed part. Be sure to change the spark plugs as well if they have more than 40 K miles.

97 is right. You need the codes for miss fire.

They will be P0300 for random miss, and P0301 to P0304 for the cylinder numbers if it is any single cylinder miss fire..


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Thanks for the info, I figured out it was both coils were bad, running like a top now!