My Cheap Mercedes S550 Really Broke - Oil in Engine Wiring Harness Repair!

what is going on ladies and gentlemen welcome back to auto auction rebuilds where today we're going to attempt to rebuild my S550 she's recently acquired some issues with oil wicking through some of the sensor wires and making their way towards the ECU which sits on top of the engine so my good friends over at FCP Euro said we have a kit for this very problem because even on the w22 this is still an issue this was a big problem on the w221s and Mercedes eventually did a recall to fix it unfortunately Mercedes has yet to recall the w22 and you are left hanging on your own to fix these problems thankfully the folks over at FCP Euro have created a kit solution for you and for me they keep track of technical service bulletins to find out what are the common problems with these vehicles not just Mercedes but any Euro vehicle and then they create kits that you can buy at very reasonable prices that should help you resolve your issue use so this is the kit that they sent to me and mine consists of four magnetic cam sensors for the front and four camshaft positioning sensors for the top they are different they also sent me this electrical spray to help clean everything out and while we're at it we're going to be doing an oil change with the appropriate oil this is the right oil for the car a synthetic filter air filters as well that's not part of the kit this is just something extra because if you're going through all of this you want to definitely take care of anything else while you're in there so this kit was very reasonably priced even though it was sponsored this was very affordable it's definitely something you can DIY at home and it's worth mentioning that anything you buy except for consumables through SCP Euro you're going to have a lifetime warranty on it guys so you you can send it back if it ever breaks on you and get another one so one more time big shout out and thank you to FCP Euro for sponsoring this video making this repair much cheaper and easier to do for me also here's one more thing and then I'm done FCP Euro when you go and you look at Parts on their site you're going to find a lot of their parts actually has videos they have how-to videos underneath the parts so you can click on the video and actually watch somebody else do the repair so you can feel confident about doing it yourself so why don't we get started on this and to help us out we got our good friend monkey pox Mike in the house we're back to Monkey pox well you know yeah everybody knows I can't work on these cars by myself Mike uh without me that's right because without him this car would just be broken I am incapable of working on cars I cannot fix anything if you fix everything no don't be careful you're going to become unpopular on YouTube if you keep talking like that all right just agree with everybody the consensus is that I can't work on cars anyway I brought monkey wrench Mike along with us today because he's going to help out this is uh this is not that involved of a job although it does look like it's a bit involved it looks worse than it is I think I shouldn't say that because that's usually when things start going very very wrong but how cool are these little things really cool that they have a solution see this is the thing normally if you go to Mercedes-Benz you can't buy this you can't buy just this well okay it does say Mercedes-Benz you can just buy this but they want you to buy this entire hose all the way to the expansion tank and back well fcpr has a little kit for that they knew exactly where I broke it when I called them they said you broke it right above the timing chain didn't you or the not the timing chain or whatever it's a water pump cover and I was like yes that's that's it exactly where I broke it but these are Mercedes parts no these yeah these are real deal you got the part numbers right here and these are not cheap parts um you don't drop them I'm afraid to touch them now so if you've missed the other videos on this car this car has a it was a pretty scary code for a cam sensor on this side of the engine I can't remember exactly which one I just remember it was on this side of the engine and when I started to take the wires apart I found they were full of oil ugh it's a bad deal yeah it's a very common problem unfortunately on the w221 and 222 and it's not just related to the V8 engines either the v6s they all seem to suffer from this problem very similar to the 722.6 Transmissions but I don't know what I'm talking about no I know absolutely nothing about these cars but I was able to talk to some people over FCP Euro and they were like dude this is a very common and very serious problem it will eventually kill the car if you don't address it the car will cease to run it's a capillary effect the the oil Wicks through the sensors and eventually goes through the entire wiring harness and destroys it and kills the car so this car would be destined for a scrap yard if you go to Mercedes-Benz I already talked to Mercedes-Benz about it it's a 10 hour job to drop this engine and it requires dropping the motor to change the entire wiring harness and probably the ECU ECU is sixteen hundred dollars by itself 10 hours at 200 an hour in labor to drop the engine and we haven't even gotten to replacing the wiring harness yet so you could save yourself tens of thousands of dollars I'm trying to do the math I can't keep up with it by just doing this yourself spend a few hundred bucks get all the parts and do it on your own so instead of talking about it why don't I set the camera up on a tripod here and uh we'll do a time lapse we'll start pulling it apart I'll give you guys an idea what's going to happen first we're going to pull all these little these little plastic covers I don't think we need to move this we got to take these off these just pop out look at this look how easy this is Boom done look at this what is it good stuff off of here look just like that all right then you pull this cover off and be nice there you go all right that's how we're going to do the whole video just like that [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] so we've run into a bit of a problem and I saw this problem coming ahead of time I did um right here you guys should be able to see this this is where your oil cooler lines run all right I have moved them these right here out of the way the problem is there is a and there's multiple problems to this particular sensor at the very bottom there is no room there is a bolt that goes down there that holds the sensor in and I mean you're going to play hell getting it out the trick is to use an eight millimeter wrench that's what I did and be very careful yeah here's my eight mil right here all right uh it's a little bit out of time and you got to flip it then flip it then flip it then flip it and eventually it'll come loose and then you have to cross your fingers and pray dig your fingers down here try to grab it get some pressure on it and pull it out and hope you don't drop it because if you do it's the end of the world the next problem is actually getting this sensor out so what I'm going to do thanks to Mike I've been we've been fighting for what an hour yeah trying to figure this out I got the sensor out the problem was I couldn't get the new sensor back in as you can see this is the old sensor by the way we're not going to practice on the uh on the brand new one but uh was there a certain angle that you found yeah it was right there right there right at almost noon that thing pointing straight up okay so it almost almost fits but not quite well get yourself a I know this is going to sound bad and this is not approved this is not an approved method by Mercedes-Benz or FCP Euro all right but uh get down in here with your screwdriver and kinda find a place where this thing seems like it wants to slide in bam now when I say pry on it I don't mean like give it the beans no no no gently gently pry it on it and it will slide in and there's another there's another thing pop this back out there we go there's another thing that's going to help you with this all right oil up the inside I've already done this on the new sensor we have not attempted to install the new sensor but the new sensor I've oiled everything up I've already cleaned the O-rings or the the sealing surfaces in here so we're going to try this now this could save someone oh literally hours yep hours of work because it looks like the only other way to do this properly is to get this entire cooler it's not a cooler it's the oil filter housing out to do that the belt has to come off the thermostat has to come off I think the there's an entire assembly down at the bottom it's got to come off too it's it's a big deal guys so this could save this could save someone countless hours right there look at that it's so close yeah and then you just gotta gently come on do it for me do it for me please right there there right there there it is there it is that's it that's it right there okay and aside from a couple minor scratches on the surface of that sensor she's fine she's in [Music] [Applause] [Music] now I don't know how well you guys can see down in there but uh at the bottom boy we're really zoomed in now right there it's hard to see if I move these oil cooler lines out of the way yeah Mike's pointing at it with a screwdriver down there that bottom bolt look out there's no that's how much room you get yeah like you can't even even with this out of the way there it it's right there you can't even I'm just telling you cross your fingers and pray because I don't know what else to tell you it was the Michael and I were talking and he said for Randy this is just a uh a difficult job but for him this is like a normal day it's kind of typical for a Mercedes really yeah wow why do you do this I don't know why because I'm stupid I'm what's the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result yeah well I think what I'm going to do next is I'm going to focus on these let me see if I can get us down there if I can even find the silly things I haven't changed my camshaft position sensors yet and they're right there on top of the motor so I had mine done two hours ago okay your site was easy because I'd already have disassembled your site for you well yeah we didn't have all the bowls though we needed my side was the hard one man all right yeah let me change out these two sensors real quick and we can button this thing back up okay I'll do the filters how about that the easy ones [Music] thank you all right next before we connect the connectors some of them are full of oil so we have this liquid Molly electronic spray and we're supposed to spray everything you want to really douse it and get get deep down in there [Music] and just let it have it and this will help to clear out any oil they got in here from the failed sensors you're going to do the same thing for every single one of these that we've changed just kind of let it sit there and soak for a little while got a three three different wires here so what I'll do is I'll put the straw into each one and then spray and here we got the same deal just give it the beans and let this stuff get in there creep and do its job there we go all right now we're on monkey wrench Mike's side the easy side the easy side the super easy side if my eyes are any good I'm just gonna there you go yeah just give it to the stuff smells good too doesn't it it does oh yeah that does smell good they gave you two cans so they want you to use a lot of it I just got the extensions that we got to put on these as well I didn't know about the extensions yeah that'll help prevent uh any future oil wicking should these sensors eventually start degrading like the other ones did yeah that smells good it really does all right this is this is important um there is definitely a possibility that oil uh kind of crept its way up from the failed sensors and into the computer and what you're looking at is the computer that sits directly on top of the engine I think that's a great place for a computer good job Mercedes putting it in a really hot and volatile environment it could get wet yes great idea um Mercedes was thinking let's see so it looks like I don't know how to do this it looks like this pulls out we do have both batteries disconnected no oil good that's that's one here's two and I'm betting this is the uh this is the one this will be there are we nervous I am not even my car and I'm nervous I can't get this uh [Music] the clicking light yeah uh oh this just comes out okay I mean this is all great but we need this uh this doesn't sound right does it um oh boy where's the screwdriver right here maybe I can again not Mercedes approved methods here no she don't want to come out I'm assuming it just comes off like the other side right Mike's like oh my goodness I just see dollar signs right now that's all I see connector is like broken this is great we're just getting we're just getting started where's my pick maybe I can pick this see yeah something's something's gone sideways here this is that that one has to come out it looks like great [Laughter] all right that took some negotiating this is what I would call it two people but uh okay I don't see anything whoa look at that that is perfectly clean so the good news is the damage has not made its way to the computer so Mike is doing the air filters while I'm over here kind of soaking these wires and cleaning things up and good Lord oh yeah I had a foreign yeah that needed to be replaced compare the two look at that oh she's gonna be so much happier she's gonna be so much happier well that's a lot there's sand and dirt and bugs yeah lovely [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] thanks [Music] all right well as you can see monkey wrench Mike and I worked really really hard to put this thing back together this was a a huge success this was giant yeah it was a it was a deal we were this close to disaster we were many times man uh each one of those little bolts that wanted to fall down the engine or yeah yeah that's like never never land down in there if you lose something down there it's over so we've got it all back together it is going to be a little low on coolant we lost quite a bit and if you saw me there was a vacuum cleaner with some random vacuum hoses shoving it down the intake I dumped uh quite a bit of coolant when I pulled that that broken pipe out that I broke I don't know weeks ago um and it went down into the valley so I sucked it all out because there are wires and stuff in the valley yeah I went ahead and got all that sucked out so that's what that was about it will be low on coolant I've got my auto max oh Auto Fix Auto Fix Auto Max I'm thinking you Auto remember that Hyundai out here we got a dealership called Automax hunt it's Auto fix we're going to be using this uh before we start up or anything we've got the batteries both batteries let me tell you the auxiliary battery in this that's fun I have a I have really torn my my wrist and my hand up getting to it um in fact if you're wondering if you're just you happen to cross this video and you got a A w22 and you're wondering where the auxiliary battery is well let me help you with that it is right here all right there's a little you reach in you pull this out and you can barely get your hand back there you won't get the battery out but you can at least disconnect it the main batteries underneath this carpet under the trunk here so if you got to get the auxiliary battery out good luck you're going to take this whole surround out and it's going to be uh it's going to be a lot of fun we got both batteries reconnected but like I said before we go through and just fire it up we want to go ahead and clear all of these codes we'll turn the ignition on she's back to life looks like everything's booting up like it's supposed to active Lane keep is inoperative and there's usually one more that's inoperative and it has something to do with a camera I can't tell you what camera I haven't looked into it it's another one of those Mercedes things intermittent problems you know I don't use the lane keep assist so it doesn't it doesn't bother me at all right she's alive let's go into Diagnostics let's go into Auto oops I just hit the wrong button cancel let's go into uh Auto detect it should pull it up relatively quickly they had already did stand alone and we'll go through it already knows what card is this thing is so this is lightning fast I mean it is this little this little scanner it's my it's my goats you can see I got that four or five thousand dollar Alltel Maxi sis Elite over there it's just sitting on a stand looking pretty because all right we'll go through I'm gonna run all the codes and then I'm going to clear all of the codes and we're going to cross our fingers and when we fire this thing up magically everything is functioning like it's supposed to remember the main thing I was concerned about is there is a cam sensor on this side that just refused to work it just kept failing it had oil in the plugs and everything and the connectors so we've got all that cleaned out hopefully we can clear the codes and this thing comes back to life without a check engine light or she's flying all right so the engine control module has passed with no Faults now it's time to start it up we do have maybe somebody can help me with this the ESP the stability program communication with multi-function camera has a malfunction it's a c05a100 c059 100 c056100 and these have to do with the lane keep assistance of which I don't use but considering I am going to sell it at some point it'd be nice if it worked and it's intermittent that's the thing is it works and then it doesn't and it works and it does it'll steer itself yeah recommended but it will steer itself it has Lane keep assist and when it's all functioning it seems to work great what if I fix it by this could it really just be a dirty I don't know lens on it I don't know I don't even know where the multi-function camera is is that the multi-function camera I think there's a there's a radar or a camera or something behind here and I read a long time ago if that gets dirty it screws it up but I don't know okay well it's very intermittent you never know there's some other sensors in the windshield I don't know well let's go ahead and uh let's go ahead and just quick erase let's see if they let's see if they're gone now because of cleaning uh it's gone it's another win it's gone we did it there's yeah are you kidding me that's it that's it don't run it again it's quit while you're ahead okay really a dirty yeah okay well I'll go ahead and shut it off and then we'll turn it back on and we'll see if that because it always pops up first thing and says problem are you ready to start it I'm clear first start no warnings you ate free safe and operative Lane keep assist in operative yeah yeah but no check engine light could it be cross your fingers guys I really think this fixed it all right well the verdict is in you want to tell them we're stupid no we're not stupid the car is stupid the car is a stupid car yeah it's uh obviously we're not too happy or enthusiastic at this point so well we could lie and say that everything's fine great everything is fine the check engine light is out probably solved we were just screwing with you guys no we weren't so it's the exact same issue and we've got we've now had two sensors attached and it's the same issue and I can tell you right now it's this one all right I'm gonna tell y'all maybe some of you out there could tell me could help me out it's this sensor right here okay intake camshaft position sensor on Bank One well here's what we did off camber we pulled this off we started poking the prod and here's what we have we have 12 volts then we have a 4.65 volt reference signal which should be 5 volts but it's 4.65 and then we have a ground we double check that we have continuity from ground to ground on the engine and we do and we have the 12 volt and we have the 5 volt reference signal right so it looks like we have everything we need before it to work properly I'm going to tell you my ideas is what I think happened and I could be wrong and you guys that are experts out there can help me I think oil crept its way through the 5 volt reference signal didn't quite make it to the computer but it's made it far enough in there that it has affected the ability of the reference signal to change I think it's stuck whenever you pull up the uh intake cam on this computer it always shows 46 degrees Which is far outside of where the intake is supposed to even be able to go to and it just sits there at 46 degrees it doesn't budge so there's a couple options one is we could find a pin out it's a kind of a tan with a black Tracer that's the reference signal it only goes right to there from there to there it's a short distance you wouldn't need a whole lot of wire you wouldn't no it could go all the way to the computer clip yourself a piece solder heat shrink and run a new reference wire and I would think that would fix it unfortunately I don't have a pin out of the computer so I don't and there's a lot of wires going to it you know uh probably more than one that's a tan with a black Tracer so you got to be careful there um at this point this is beyond my skill level right now we've I don't know where else to go I've checked under here we can turn the engine just to make sure that I think it's called a reluctor plate is spinning and it is so everything is working but there is a problem somewhere between this and the computer um well we just don't want to unplug the battery and do that right now no we're tired of unplugging we're going to change the oil we've got all this fresh oil it's got a brand new filter with now older oil flowing through it but that's fine um we've got the new coolant hose installed and it's working the car is at the operating temperature and it runs just as good as it did before so I'm sure there's a lot of people that would feel like a complete this is a complete failure complete waste of time because this was a lot of work yeah and we accomplished nothing well thank you we did though right we did we have prevented any further disaster that's right so so what's preventative maintenance and the people at FCP Euro told me that there is a possibility that the wiring harness is damaged it's this is a very common problem with 221s and 222s v6s V8s alike it's just one of those things you got to live with so what they told me is even if you go through all this work and you get it done and it doesn't resolve the problem it was not a complete failure because what we have done is we've added the extension harnesses to the uh cam magnets on both sides those will prevent any oil wicking from ever going through the system and getting back to the computer in the future that is a permanent fix next we've got all new cam sensors all four of them we've got all new cam magnets all four of them as well we've cleaned up the wiring harness as best we can and none of these sensors are leaking now and several of them were they were full of oil right so we have successfully prevented the car from eventually being killed it's kind of I said earlier it's kind of like cancer for a car you know you've got this oil that's seeping through the system and it doesn't just stop it goes through and then it gets through the computer and then it goes through to the injectors I mean it goes everywhere and the oil eventually destroys the entire electronic system on the car and it ceases to function anymore at which point are you going to pay Mercedes ten thousand dollars or are you going to send the car down the road right that's so that's where it's at so I feel like even if we still have one code it's one code guys it wouldn't be it would it would it be a Mercedes if the check engine light was on absolutely not it runs fine yeah it's great fuel economy I get over 23 like 23.7 miles a gallon it doesn't hesitate stumble it doesn't misfire it runs perfect it drives perfect but we've obviously got some little Gremlin going on and we know where it is it's here it's between here and here but we saved the car is what we did it's peace of mind what we have done whoever's lucky enough to get this car next could be you peace of mind could be you let's start a GoFundMe you set it up I'll put a link down below okay yeah Mike needs a real Mercedes the unfortunate side of my business is I can't keep the car yeah I wish I could I'd love to but I've already got a replacement for it that's on the way it's definitely not going to replace it though this could be your favorite car I think this one yeah this one by far yeah okay good but it's by far my favorite car and if I could afford to keep it especially for the price I paid fifteen thousand dollars for it I would absolutely hold on to this car all day every day I'd hold on to it but I've already bought a BMW X5 that's diesel diesel yeah Diesel and uh it just so happens to have a pretty major and pretty expensive mechanical fold they could uh directly impact head gaskets And the cylinder head warping in the block and it's it's a pretty big deal um boy we might have to get you down for that one Mike you might have to come down and get my hands dirty again yeah we didn't get them too dirty this time this wasn't too messy not too bad not too this really wasn't that big of a deal it was just kind of a pain tight working conditions typical European car stuff but you know we're gonna get out of here I I want to thank each and everyone take time to watch a video I want to thank monkey wrench Mike for taking his time to come out here today and help out be sure to go subscribe to his channel his link is below this video and that GoFundMe campaign and to GoFundMe if he creates I'll start a GoFundMe and put the link below for you there you go and then I'll tell you will you donate five dollars I'll take the money and I'll pay for this car for myself I wouldn't do that um I do want to give one more shout out and thank you to FCP Euro yeah all those I mean we threw a lot of parts into this car today a lot of Mercedes parts factory genuine Mercedes parts uh they paid for everything guys um and that is huge to have them supporting us like that so definitely go check them out their link will be below this video as well if you have any ideas on what could be done to fix this if you're a Mercedes Tech God that would be great if somebody watching this is like hey I've done this a million times please shoot me your suggestions in the comments section below I will be paying very close attention to the comments on this video till next time stay safe out there everybody we will see you all very soon in the next one but if you stuck around to the end of the video there's more is Michael wrench Mike and I thought this will be boring where's the light at Mike right here we thought this will be boring just changing the oil in this Mercedes right so there's no point filming it well it actually got interesting first they don't give you a cut out you have to take the belly pan off and if it looks wet under here there's a lot of antifreeze that I spilled earlier you can see it all over the place okay no oil just a bunch of antifreeze but take a look take a look here that is your drain plug yep I'm not kidding that is your drain plug that is interesting in SCP Euro put a kit together for me again with the kits man thank you for the kits uh and it came with a brand new drain plug I'm guessing these are like one use only type of drain plugs so why don't we get that out and let's get this oil changed all right here it goes it's like a corkscrew or something oh this thing's gonna no but it's going to come and it's going to come out with a Vengeance there's like eight quarts in this thing it's gonna hit this and then drain into there and it's hot as heck too oh yeah this will be great this is going to come flying out at me here we go you guys ready here it comes oh I told you I told you oh look at that beautiful oil though can we all just take a minute to appreciate that beautiful golden color very nice there's your uh there's your plug right there thank you Mike this thing had very clean oil in it huh kind of like it didn't even really need an oil change did it is there a sticker that says no cartel has changed yeah the car tells you tells you we need to change the oil so I'll be sure to reset that and fill it up with some of this fresh liquid Molly um zero w40 that is the appropriate motor oil for this car eight quarts that is absolutely insane I'm not gonna have you guys watch the rest of it now it's just finished draining put it all back together and we're done say bye monkey goodbye monkey foreign [Music]

Channel: Auto Auction Rebuilds

Views: 143,989

Keywords: Auto Auction Rebuilds, car repair, fixing cars, cheap cars, car flipping, diy, ev, roadkill, doug demuro, aston martin, mercedes, amg, bmw, lamborghini, ferrari, gallardo, turbo, cheap, budget, chrisfix, hoovies garage, jalopnik, motor trend, hack, how to, tutorial, sl55, r230, r231, v8, v12, mightycarmods, camshaft position sensor symptoms, camshaft position sensor, camshaft position sensor test, camshaft position sensor problems, camshaft position sensor replacement, camshaft position sensor bank 1

Id: QA_nhW-4fRA

Length: 34min 45sec (2085 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 03 2023