E200 kompressor VICTIM 2004

jtimmons54

Hi, I need good advice here.... So I bought an e200 three weeks, I loved the car the minute I saw it, a nice blue avantgarde model, 111k miles, original asking price €5,600. I said to myself its as high of an asking price anyone would want to asking for but it was clean apart from two scuffs on the bumper. Anyway I traded in an old 307 van for it and away I was.

Decided to drop it into the local Mercedes dealership today to get it serviced, grand I said probably 200/250 for a service. I get a call around 11 to say that it needed pads and discs and sensors on each corner so i give the go ahead and said to myself at least it will be done and out of the way. Go to collect the car at 5pm only to told that I had big problems!!! ball joint gone on passenger side heater valve not working, brake lines behind rusty and wait for it.......... the car had a wrong engine in it, that it wasnt a e200 engine it and that emissions were high and that it wouldnt pass a test(due in April next year) The engine management light came on after they serviced it, they said it had being knocked off and that they cant turn it off because it would be "illegal"

What news to get on a friday evening and then a bill of €869!! The question I have

a, What kind of engine would fit into an e200 that wasnt an E-engine??
b,would I have a leg to stand on if tried to return it, on the reciept it says "sold as seen"

its gas the way they couldnt tell me what engine it was only that it wasnt from an e class. fro researching myself it says that 2004 e classes should have a timing chain so i took a look and it has a belt...

the whole situation is a shame because it drives well but I havent got a clue now what mileage is on the engine and if i keep it it wont pass a test on the emissions... ANY HELP/ADVICE??

visual

If it was a dealer you bought it from return it asap

If there's a kompressor engine in there it has a timing chain not a belt, if it didn't come from an E class I imagine it's from a C class.

Merc garage should be able to get this info from engine block markings.

fmcg_scribe

visual wrote: »

If it was a dealer you bought it from return it asap

Agreed.

A private seller can get away with "sold as seen" on a receipt of sale but a trader cannot put that phrase into an invoice of sale because it restricts your rights under the Sale of Goods Act.

Further, in this case, the car is not as described and its general condition might not be of "merchantable quality", so potentially you have at least three complaints to raise with the trader.

Toyotafanboi

does anyone else remember a thread on here from 2-3 months ago about a fella who bought a second hand mid 2000's E-Class only to discover it had had its engine replaced with one from a C-Class 180? it also needed suspension work and some other stuff. didn't he successfully get a refund in the end.

wonder is it the same car.

edit: this thread http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057219564

E200, wrong replacement engine, all brake pads shot, ball joint and suspension trouble. probably a coincidence, but you'd never know.

fmcg_scribe

Toyotafanboi wrote: »

does anyone else remember a thread on here from 2-3 months ago about a fella who bought a second hand mid 2000's E-Class only to discover it had had its engine replaced with one from a C-Class 180? it also needed suspension work and some other stuff. didn't he successfully get a refund in the end.

wonder is it the same car.

edit: this thread http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057219564

E200, wrong replacement engine, all brake pads shot, ball joint and suspension trouble. probably a coincidence, but you'd never know.

All of this sounds like a modern form of "cut and shut" from back in the day.

coylemj

You bought a 10 year old E200 for an 'original asking price' of €5,600 and then .....

jtimmons54 wrote: »

Decided to drop it into the local Mercedes dealership today to get it serviced,

Who the hell buys a secondhand 10 year old Merc in a private deal and then hands it over to a Merc dealer for a service?

Are you trying to wind us up or what sort of game are you playing?

Cee-Jay-Cee

OP have you a link to the ad you bought it from? Sold as seen means nothing if the seller sold something fraudulently and I would be taking legal advice on it.

I'm sure that you had to have been given details on the car before buying considering the asking price so what were you actually told about the car?

Does the engine number match the number on the VLC?

jtimmons54

coylemj wrote: »

You bought a 10 year old E200 for an 'original asking price' of €5,600 and then .....
Who the hell buys a secondhand 10 year old Merc in a private deal and then hands it over to a Merc dealer for a service?
Are you trying to wind us up or what sort of game are you playing?

Mmmh does it sound like im trying to wind "ye" up, I bought a car and decided to drop it in for a service, which I thought would cost €250 or so, whats the problem with that?!! it was with a trade in so i didnt pay €5,600.

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

OP have you a link to the ad you bought it from? Sold as seen means nothing if the seller sold something fraudulently and I would be taking legal advice on it.
I'm sure that you had to have been given details on the car before buying considering the asking price so what were you actually told about the car?
Does the engine number match the number on the VLC?

I couldnt tell ya, i was surprised that fitzpatricks couldnt tell me what engine it was, just said it wasnt an e200 engine.

I will call the place where I bought it tomorrow and confront him and see what his response is. The thing is that I dont necessarily mind if its not the original engine, the car drives unbelievably well and if the emissions were grand and i could nct it i would drive it on for a year or two.

djimi

You might be able to drive it grand but you'll have a hard time selling it when buyers cop it's not the original engine and you can't explain why or what engine is in it now. You need to get this sorted, and if the dealer you got it from can't provide you with all the details and documentation for that engine then they need to return your money and you need to hand them back the keys imo.

Esel

Toyotafanboi wrote: »

does anyone else remember a thread on here from 2-3 months ago about a fella who bought a second hand mid 2000's E-Class only to discover it had had its engine replaced with one from a C-Class 180? it also needed suspension work and some other stuff. didn't he successfully get a refund in the end.

wonder is it the same car.

edit: this thread http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057219564

E200, wrong replacement engine, all brake pads shot, ball joint and suspension trouble. probably a coincidence, but you'd never know.

Just one more thing...

Do any of friends call you Columbo, Mannix, or maybe Jim Rockford?

Esel

jtimmons54 wrote: »

The thing is that I dont necessarily mind if its not the original engine, the car drives unbelievably well and if the emissions were grand and i could nct it i would drive it on for a year or two.

If you really don't mind about the engine being a transplant, then you are well on the back foot already. A replacement engine should have been notified to Shannon and recorded in the subsequent amended registration certificate.

Re the emissions - were you told what the cause might be, and the cost to rectify? Find out, before you go back to the seller. The other issues - disks, sensors, ball joint, heater valve, brake lines - you probably have no comeback on these unless you were explicitly were told they were fine (i.e. you asked or they said).

So, if you go back, your unswerving, immovable attitude/position is that you have been sold a pup and you want your money back. You probably will not have a hope of getting much/any of that €869 you spent on the service back from the seller.

Maybe, just maybe (after a long while) you might be satisfied if they (i) fix the emission issues and (ii) provide you with a document certifying the replacement engine (both issues to be approved your own independent assessor), after which you should immediately apply to Shannon for a new certificate which records the engine change.

Next time, don't be loving the car and the colour (hate that colour! ), and big up the 'old van' you are offerring as a trade in, even if it is a shed and you would be glad to see the back of it.

Special Circumstances

Are you sure it wasn't an aux belt you saw? Did you take off some cover to check belt or chain?

Bit about the engine management light is very strange, "illegal"? Futile unless the actual fault is resolved but not illegal.

Get something in writing from them. Weird they can't say whay engine it is.

derry

There was few years back a whole lot of BMW and Mercs imported from South Africa. This is because South Africa makes most all models of the BMW and the Mercs both for the African market and for Europe.
The export to Europe versions BMW and Merc have all the correct stuff for EU regulations such as emissions controls .

The south African and African market cars often have little or no emission control systems as those are not required there so these cars would resemble very much the the early 1980s era BMW and Merc cars in terms of emissions.
this can result in if somebody has Merc or BMW that had broken engine in Ireland and they went on the net they could buy direct from South African scrapers or even the factories there for much cheaper engines which do not conform to EU emission regulations .

A South African expert told me when they make the BMW and MERC mostly the 3 series and low end MERC for the European markets you can be sure the 3 series BMW and low end merc you buy in Ireland were made in South Africa to EU standards .
.On that EU export assembly line the parts are made in many thousands of batches an example is the carburetors will often be the exact same for 10,000 plus cars .Also they will make the replacements parts needed whatever that number is something like a few thousand extra. These replacement parts will be shipped out to the main European dealers so that there is a reduced risk not to have the spare parts for these EU exported cars .

However on the for South African market assembly lines the cars will often change components with as few as ~100 cars so things like carburetors will vary wildly between ten thousand cars as they shop around for cheapest components each day .

This results in nightmares for spare spare parts for South African car engines for the BMW and Mercs that are made in south Africa if your not living in South Africa to be able to find some suitable replacement .

In south Africa where mechanics are real mechanics and know their onions they can normally know how to clobber together some solution that works to replace some part like carburetor if they cant get the exact same part . .

If one imported to Ireland either a made for South African BMW or Merc car or a engine from these your probably gonna be up s****s creek without a paddle unless you can find a real mechanic that comes from places like South Africa or Russia or similar or some older retired Irish mechanic who know the old ways to Gunter things back together to make things work.

If you do find a young Irish real mechanic who hasn't been trained as a replace the parts with new parts monkey see monkey do mechanic he will probably put you on his one year long waiting list . Yeah the good old days in Ireland they had the best mechanics but those days are long gone with these new big outfits with their computer systems that cant find a cracked spark plug on Audi TT for ~6 months ha ha


I do recall somewhere about the year ~2000 some hapless Irish people bought Merc cars from South Africa probably on EBay and found the Merc cars were fitted out with Nissan or Toyota engines typically 1600cc versions .
This was common practice in South Africa as the Toyota and Nissan engines were able to do several million miles twice round the clock and the smaller engines were more economic. This suited the South African car owners desires to travel along nicely at ~60MPH and do many thousands of miles every day often as taxi service for their village or town .It was a brilliant combination that was all the rage in southern Africa Merc comfort at more economic fuel and spare parts prices . it was shock to new Irish Owners who didn't know this and now had a lemon that couldn't pass the EU rules on emissions . This resulted in some engine imports from South Africa of suitable made for South Africa Merc engines or replacing engines from Irish Merc scrapers


Anyway the getting the made for South African Engine to run is only half the problems the getting the engine to pass the NCT the ROI emissions is the big problem .
If I had this problem (which I nearly had when I was leaving South Africa I was tempted to bring my 3 series BMW to Ireland but in the end didn't to do it) I would have considered to convert the South African made car engine to run on Ethanol type E85 fuel which is ~15% petrol and ~85% ethanol ( E85 I gather is no longer for sale in ROI since ~2007 ) Thats a fairly easy conversion to do .
I would consider to Buy a tank full of the fuel for the day of test . Change the spark plugs to extra hot spark plugs so it can burn the Ethanol fuel which is reluctant to burn . Advance the timing to aid the ethanol to burn more early as the fuel takes longer to ignite so advancing the timing sorts that .

The 85% ethanol fuel is probably too much for computer injector systems to figure out so it would result in to much rough running as the car needs ~30% more fuel than petrol fuel due to the fact that ~30% the ethanol fuel is oxygen in the molecules
Petrol has no oxygen in the molecules so needs to get oxygen from the air .
Adding some petrol to the E85 mix so that the fuel is basically 30% ethanol 70% up to maybe 40% ethanol to 60% petrol . That per percentage figure of ethanol the computer control in the cars can cope with will vary from car to car but they say most computer controlled injector cars will cope with ~50% ethanol ~50% petrol mix without problems .

The point of the exercise is to get mix with enough ethanol in the fuel that will burn up all the petrol fuel so making nearly no emissions going to the cat . It looks like 30% ethanol will be enough to burn the petrol more cleanly
If there are few unburnt petrol, emissions getting to the CAT the CAT will more easy soak up these emissions and the car can increase it chances to pass the NCT .

A example of this in ~2010 I took my primitive carburetor engine 1000cc 1998 Susiki swift to the NCT with a ~40% E85 mix and ~60% E5 petrol mix with ~5% Colemans lighter fuel added in

The slow rpm tick over was reading 0.01 CO (carbon monoxide ) and pass was 0.50 CO (carbon monoxide ) . Thats as close to zero reading as you can get .
All the rest of the reading were very low well below pass levels.

Another guy on this same Boards forum converted his carburetor car to run on only E85 .Thats more easy with carburetor just open the fuel jet ~30% more to give the car more fuel ( E85 conversion also gives ~20 more power but ~30% less MPG ).
He also advanced the timing and put in hotter spark plugs
He got absolute Zero on his CO reading and the NCT thought their machine was broken and put it on another machine as they could not believe the reading .
What was good for him was the CAT in that car was completely stuffed and could never pass a NCT with normal fuels .
After the NCT he just converted car back to run on normal fuels .

It meant that E85 fuels properly done do not need a CAT to burn up the petrols fuels which engines throw out because they dont burn all the petrol fuel properly.

Also Irish petrol fuels are reputedly the worst quality of Europe with the exception of Greece. Some people claim merely going over to the UK and filling the car with UK fuel will make a car pass the NCT in ROI where the car had previously failed the emissions tests .

Another alternative that might work which I have never tried is to source form the UK a special Clean burning petrol fuel http://www.aspenfuel.co.uk/ ( reputedly one shop in Dublin now sells it ) that lawnmowers and chain saw users in most of Europe are mandatory obliged to use to cut down the the cancer causing unburnt petrol emissions from these devices as they do not have CATS to clean up the unburnt fuel residues .
Its not cheap something like ~€5 a liter .
More info on clean burn petrol additives for the chemical junkies
https://web.anl.gov/PCS/acsfuel/preprint%20archive/Files/41_3_ORLANDO_08-96_0916.pdf

Clean burn petrol fuels possibly doesn't contain Ethanol in it where as normal petrol Fuel in ROI has ~5% ethanol . If that is the case it might be lower octane than car fuel and probably would need the addition of 5% to 10% of ethanol to bring the fuels octane back up to car running octane levels .
Because this special petrol fuel is made to burn up completely without the use of CAT in the system . With that solution a few gallons for the test pass the NCT emissions test go back to the old crap fuel the garages in Ireland sell .

One fuel that burns cleanly that is definitely not suitable for modern car is Colemans Fuel available in camping shops in Dublin at something like €30 a liter .It has very low octane something like ~70RON where most fuels in modern cars are the I think ~90ROMN or more . Colman fuel was what the early 1920s model T ford car with ~3000cc ~20BHP 6:1 compression ratio cars would burn .Modern car of 3000cc will have 100 plus BHP and compression ratio of 8:1 and the fuel will have probably at least 10% toluene and 5% Ethanol millions of additives to get the Octane RON up to 90 or more .
The modern fuels need more compression ratio to give more power . Equally to high a compression the fuel will pre detonate (ping and wreck the engine )

I added some 5% Colmans fuel to my 1000cc Suziki swift car with 30% ethanol .The Coleman's fuel would bring the 90RON Irish fuel down to probably 80RON but the 100 RON ethanol fuel would bring the fuel back up to 90 RON .Its high risk game as the Colemans fuel burns extremely hot compared to normal Petrol and can kill the CAT in the car easy peasy The cat if it over heats turn funny colours on the outside of cat covers and means it is now a broken CAT. Ethanol burns cool and can bring down the heat of the fuel .So very little Colmans fuel to lot of Ethanol added to ROI pump petrol fuel mix was my solution to reduce emissions for my NCT test.

There are additives on the market that can also help .

There are lots of other tricks drive the car for two hours before NCT to get car engine hot as possible and CAT hot as possible. I brought my friends sick 1999 Volvo V40 1800cc with 150,000 miles on it which had failed the emissions NCT test . I simply drove it fast the day before down the highways in low gears to burn out the crud . I dropped the oil level to minimum possible. The next day started engine two hours before NCT then drove there in lowwest gears. Then had two sets of keys handed in the first set of keys to NCT and stayed with car keeping engine running .When the mechanic came switched off car and he took the car with the other keys .The car passed barley and drove for another while before it dropped the big end from low oil levels from oil leaks and went to scraper . So simple cheap tricks can sometimes pass the NCT also.

However the issue of the engine management light is different issue . There you need a Mechanic that knows how to bypass that without to be detected . That I know to do myself if I had that problem .

Another popular solution for Germans and French and Spanish with these problems is they take their Merc cars to Morocco
Again there there are real mechanics there that can build most anything and the wages they get is typically €1 a hour . Friends of mine mostly from mainland Europe even eastern Europeans have taken old beaten up Mercs to Morocco and come back with lovely cars with newwer different better engines and resprayed . They often sell it for more than the price they paid to do everything and got to use the Merc for year or two . The Moroccans buy up second hand Mercs mostly from Germany and the country is full of them . The scrapers are brilliant they say a real mecca for Merc spare parts . Moroccans garages they say can fit any merc engine to most all types of Mercs for fraction of the cost of Ireland or europe and build it to to EU emissions standards if necessary .However buying a Merc there aways check the back half isnt welded to the front half as they sometimes mix different Merc models backs and fronts together . Morocco have no emission standards so they often remove any emissions systems .Also their petrol fuels often have high paraffin or kerosene mix and thier diesels can have 5000ppm sulfer in it so these fuels can wreck modern cars that go to visit Morocco .However no tax on fuel so cheap as chips ~€0.60c a liter

Hope this helps your plans or investigations how you got stiffed with pup

Diarmaid

Valetta

Holy sh1 t man, there's no space left on the intern

HandsomeDan

Ha, I had begun to read that last post but felt something was wrong. Scan the name... derry :rolleyes:

For anyone who doesn't know, derry has an extremely fertile imagination and is regularly called up for posting total bs.

_Kaiser_

If you bought it from a dealer OP, bring it back and get a refund then buy a proper one. Wayyy too much aggravation in this one from what you've said.



@Coylemj: Far too harsh. What he paid for it is none of our business if he was happy with the deal. Also, not everyone is a petrol head or knows a "trustworthy indy" (with the right kit to look after such a car). These cars (like most modern premium cars) are rolling computers more than anything else.

Nothing wrong with the OP wanting to get it checked over by Mercedes themselves - get any updates installed, recalls checked etc. You average home garage/back street indy won't be able to do either of those.

mullingar

jtimmons54 wrote: »

Hi, I need good advice here.... So I bought an e200 three weeks, I loved the car the minute I saw it, a nice blue avantgarde model, 111k miles, original asking price €5,600. I said to myself its as high of an asking price anyone would want to asking for but it was clean apart from two scuffs on the bumper. Anyway I traded in an old 307 van for it and away I was.

Decided to drop it into the local Mercedes dealership today to get it serviced, grand I said probably 200/250 for a service. I get a call around 11 to say that it needed pads and discs and sensors on each corner so i give the go ahead and said to myself at least it will be done and out of the way. Go to collect the car at 5pm only to told that I had big problems!!! ball joint gone on passenger side heater valve not working, brake lines behind rusty and wait for it.......... the car had a wrong engine in it, that it wasnt a e200 engine it and that emissions were high and that it wouldnt pass a test(due in April next year) The engine management light came on after they serviced it, they said it had being knocked off and that they cant turn it off because it would be "illegal"

What news to get on a friday evening and then a bill of €869!! The question I have

a, What kind of engine would fit into an e200 that wasnt an E-engine??
b,would I have a leg to stand on if tried to return it, on the reciept it says "sold as seen"

its gas the way they couldnt tell me what engine it was only that it wasnt from an e class. fro researching myself it says that 2004 e classes should have a timing chain so i took a look and it has a belt...

the whole situation is a shame because it drives well but I havent got a clue now what mileage is on the engine and if i keep it it wont pass a test on the emissions... ANY HELP/ADVICE??

Right,

There are a few things here, firstly, wtf did you go to a main dealer with a 10 year old car? They are going to fleece you on parts. Most of those items are wear/tear parts anyway that would not be covered under any warranty.

Secondly, when was the NCT last done? If the "new" engine has been in there a few years then it must have passed previous NCT emissions test. Don't listen to the main dealer on the emissions bull, bring it to a decent Indy mechanic to do emissions test.

It's not the end of the world once it's straight, drives well, serviced and passes the NCT (now yearly for your car), so what then if it had a transplant.

coylemj

jtimmons54 wrote: »

Mmmh does it sound like im trying to wind "ye" up, I bought a car and decided to drop it in for a service, which I thought would cost €250 or so, whats the problem with that?!!

You've already answered your own question, you got a bill for €869.

George Dalton

No Mercedes engine ever had a timing belt. So it must have been the alternator belt you were looking at.

Bringing a 10 year old car to a main dealer for them to judge it on the same criteria as when it was brand new will never work out well.

We see this kind of crap all the time from main dealers where they get a car in the door for a service and then produce a heart stopping list of 'essential' work, little or none of which is needed. I would suspect that there was feck all wrong with your discs and pads. The balljoint is a cheap fix on the W211 E Class. The fact it has had an engine change is neither here nor there.

You should be more annoyed with the main dealer and yourself than the lad who sold you the car IMO.

mullingar

jtimmons54 wrote: »

The engine management light came on after they serviced it, they said it had being knocked off and that they cant turn it off because it would be "illegal

This is also scaremongering. I'd love to know under what legislation turning off a light is illegal

Esel

Valetta wrote: »

Holy sh1 t man, there's no space left on the intern

Click the user's name then Add to Ignore List. Job done. You will still get an occasional laugh/shiver if someone quotes a post of theirs in the future.

HandsomeDan

Esel wrote: »

Click the user's name then Add to Ignore List. Job done. You will still get an occasional laugh/shiver if someone quotes a post of theirs in the future.

No don't set derry to ignore. To much fun reading his posts :pac:

They're actually quite well written... but bat-**** insane at the same time

Esel

HandsomeDan wrote: »

No don't set derry to ignore. To much fun reading his posts :pac:

They're actually quite well written... but bat-**** insane at the same time

Seriously, there is not enough time. If they were formatted correctly, with paragraphs and a bit of white space, then just maybe yes, for the laugh.

I put him on my list a few years ago, then had a brainfart and took him off for some reason. Didn't take long to promote him again...

corktina

what's a carburettor?

oldyouth

corktina wrote: »

what's a carburettor?

Mexican food, wrapped in a tortilla, which you eat while driving

bmwguy

Normally wouldn't say this but you are kind of lucky this car wasn't of merchantable quality because you paid approx twice it's normal market value. I bought a 2004 525i sport last year for 2450, in great condition. A year on has proved this. My uncle and boss sold his 2003 e200 kompressor in 2012 and got 3.5 grand for it. It was the most well minded e200 I had ever seen too. He got a brand new e200 then and missed his old one. Anyway, enough about your purchase price, but I do have a reason for bringing up your high purchase price. As others said, sold as seen on the receipt means nothing when bought from a dealer. Fight to get the money back, spend a few quid if you have to because if you get 5600 back you will buy another, legit car for approx half that. You have a good case by the sounds of things. Best of luck.

Cleveland Hot Pocket

Ah good, Jim Corr/Derry is back!
Love reading your posts man, good for an aul chuckle.

Leonard Hofstadter

corktina wrote: »

what's a carburettor?

Indeed, premium German cars haven't had them for what... 30 years now or thereabouts?