E200 K Mercedes.. Dead?!

Trotter

Hi all,

Just writing on behalf of a mate of mine who isn't up to speed on boards.
He has a 05 E200 K Mercedes (160k km) and the other morning he went outside and it wouldnt start. He brought it to his usual mechanic who isnt a main dealer to get it checked out.

Now.. He's distraught. The mechanic has said that the timing chain went and that it has destroyed the parts around it. Cost of repair.. €4000+ excluding labour.

Trade in value is now around €500 it seems.

The chap, like most of us, isnt overly ready to jump with 5k to put into a car that would then be worth not much more than 5k.

Do the costs above sound realistic? It seems amazing to me that an 8 year old Merc could just fall in a heap and need 5 grand put into it to make it right.

The lad is gobsmacked! Its days like today I'm glad I have can only afford a Yaris

biko

Strange how the chain went in the middle of the night.
But yeah, if they snap they will cause a lot of damage.

In general chains are supposed to last the life of the car and many do.
Did he have any noises or similar before this happened? They usually stretch and make noise before they break. Was it ever inspected?

Photoshop

Suppose to be very unreliable alright, alot of people replace timing chains on them at 80 -90k miles.

How much is a new engine from a breakers?

Popular car in the UK.

Seems to be a few for breaking here as well.

http://www.partfinder.ie/cgi-bin/scripts/search.pl

I would get a few opinions before spending a penny.

anthony4335

It is supposed to be an issue for these cars, where they did an update to the pulleys to stop this but I think that this make be causing issues where the pulleys break causing the same damage.
However I would not expect to see one go without warning signs.
Pity really was going to buy one last year until I read this.

Kid Nothing

Yep they have a history of snapping chains. As was mentioned, they're recommended to be changed around 90,000. €4000 is quite expensive though. I'd get a few quotes. It's a big enough job and requires some who knows what they're doing.

Trotter

Thanks for the help. He'll get a main dealer to check it over and see what happens I reckon.

biko

biko wrote: »

Strange how the chain went in the middle of the night............

I would think it snapped at the attempted start up.

Kid Nothing

Trotter wrote: »

Thanks for the help. He'll get a main dealer to check it over and see what happens I reckon.

He'd be far better off having a decent independent look at. Main dealer will go to town on him for a job like this.