Here are some photos of the engine bay. One of the injectors seems to have a fuel leak (left to right, top to bottom, seen in the third, fourth, and fifth pic below). Tomorrow I’ll try checking some more references to see what I can do about it. If I need to replace the injector, it’ll cost about $50. The fuel leak is probably related to the power loss, so after I diagnose and fix the vacuum leak and the fuel leak, it should be good to go!
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300D, Diesel, Mercedes-Benz
For the little that I’ve test driven this car (Andrea test drove it), I’ve noticed that the car has no power, either from the transmission not down shifting properly, or the turbo providing no boost. There could be several reasons for this, but I suspect the top reason is vacuum related. Below are two images of something I discovered after inspecting obvious vacuum fittings. The junction near the screw on fuel filter has a line that is plugged with a wooden dowel! That means anything downstream from that tube isn’t getting any vacuum. So far the only symptom has been the lack of power and the shifting issue. I spoke with the seller and he’s going to help diagnose the problem on Monday.
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300D, Diesel, Mercedes-Benz, Vacuum
Meet Andrea’s new car:
The car is a 1993 Mercedes-Benz 300D 2.5 with 188K miles! The mileage might seem high to most people, but after driving my 2005 VW Golf TDI for 95K miles with zero problems, and after researching the Mercedes diesel engines, I don’t think Andrea will have to worry about the engine failing. Just do a quick search on craigslist and see how many old 1980s/1990s 300Ds are for sale and you’ll see that most are in the 200K+ mile range. It is an old car though, so I’m sure eventually it will have electrical/mechanical issues. For now, it seems great though. Mechanically, everything that I’ve tested is working. When the time comes for repairs, hopefully they’ll be minor enough that I could tackle them. I think the only two things I won’t attempt to do on the car are transmission and engine related.
Andrea has been driving to UMBC on opposite days that I’ve gone, so we’ve been driving to work separately on four of the five work days of the week. Previously, we were splitting the cost of diesel for my car, since we drive everywhere together and my car is super efficient compared to her Oldsmobile Aurora. Because of this, we were saving a lot of money. Now that we drive separately, Andrea has been paying to fill up her Oldsmobile and has been getting really crappy mileage (~18 mpg?). This “new” Mercedes should get her around 30, which should save her a considerable amount of money in the long term.
Go diesels! I hope I hope I hope nothing major happens in the next year or two. That would be super.
In the immediate future, the car will need: new tires, new mirror control switch, and a pillar trim piece. Maybe I’ll also need to check the timing chain, but I need to read more about how to measure the chain stretch.
From what I’ve been reading, there’s no such thing as a cheap Mercedes. We’ll see if that’s true.
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300D, Diesel, Mercedes-Benz
