Ridiculously expensive part .

[Silver Baz]

About three weeks ago my E-Class threw up an engine light fault , the OBD2 check showed RH air intake sensor fault and so began a bit of a saga .
It's a 3 litre engine and all the YouTube vids showed people removing sensor and cleaning it or replacing if that didn't work . I just could not find the sensor , turns out my engine was newer (2012) and both right and left sensors are in the MASS Airflow manifold :

The sensor sockets are there left and right , easy except they are now built into the unit and can't be removed

. Doing a bit of research on forums and there were stories of £1500 for Mercedes to diagnose and replace , even worse reports of it not rectifying the fault . No part of this unit comes apart but a guy in the USA had used a heat gun to remove the sections holding the sensors and swap them around to see if the fault changed sides . So I set about this as I have a heat gun , had to reheat to get the flanges to reseal after the swap . Back on the car and sure enough the fault went from right to left , so ok I bought the part , £250 for a piece of plastic !
Either side of the intake bellows their are filters (not shown) these were semi blocked which tend to cause the sensor fault as oil is sucked out of the turbo , I cleaned them but decided to buy some new ones . Right , on fitting the unit the plugs wouldn't match up with the sockets

, my plugs are four pin , the sockets 5 pin , a 2015 modification

.
The seller excepted my return but didn't have a four pin unit , found a few but and this is a big but - £750 ! I decided to go to a local independent Benz outfit and ask about a quick fix , nope you need the unit and yes they are £750 for a piece of plastic tunneling with two £5 sensors , scandlous ! Back to ebay and I managed to source one for £550 .

 

[andyglym]

Jesus! That's carnage mate

 

[Silver Baz]

Jesus! That's carnage mate

Yep scandalous , the guy in the MB indy place said have you seen the new showroom Chester , biggest in Europe and that is why a piece of Mercedes plastic costs £750 . I wouldn't mind if it contained a chip or two but it's empty bar the two sensors .
The guy in America who split his unit made a very funny video with his two little girls explaining how stupidly expensive the part is and why they weren't getting any Xmas presents , if I come across it again I'll post it here .

 

[Synclare]

Unless demand rises sufficiently to promote after market manufactured items these and many other cars will become scrap due to residual values making them uneconomic to repair. Otherwise perfectly useable cars being scrapped well ahead of time, this has to be counter productive to saving resources and lowering production emissions. Same as all this water based rubbish, you spend so much more resources using inferior products repeatedly to do the job a proper product would do in one application. Save the world and run old bangers like I do
I wonder what the cost of new traction motors for electric cars will be, never mind the batteries

 

[hard top]

Bloody hell, I have owned and driven three Mercedes and never came across problems with them that cost that much to rectify !

 

[Mint]

Blimey, and we all thought BMW plastic was expensive

 

[Silver Baz]

The car was running ok and the fuel economy was the same but I don't know what might have happened further down the line if the fuel mix wasn't receiving the correct info .

 

[Pingu]

Similarly expensive story on BMW is the VANOS control wire - £150 each - and there's two of them.

I Dremelled the plug apart and found the offending diode (no markings). After about £50 of wrong diode purchases in minimum order quantities of 100 for £10, I found the correct diode and used epoxy resin poured into a wooden mould to remake the plug. b******* if I was paying £150 for a length of wire with a plug on the end .

I'd have spent 100 hours and £100 to source the sensor and glue/melt it onto the manifold.

 

[Synclare]

Wonder what it would cost to make a car in kit form by buying all the bits separately!

 

[Silver Baz]

I'd have spent 100 hours and £100 to source the sensor and glue/melt it onto the manifold.

I did have a look around but didn't come up with anything , after I had compromised the unit by splitting it to swap left to right I didn't want to refit a messed up bit of kit . Before all that I did think about P/EX-ing the car but the depreciation in the 16 months I've had it was a bit yikes !

 

[DelGue]

Wonder what it would cost to make a car in kit form by buying all the bits separately!

A local news reporter where Iived in California years ago, did a report on just that. He investigated the cost of building a base model 2 dr sedan ( can't remember if it was a Ford or Chevrolet) buying each part individually. I can't recall the exact amount, but it was 4 or 5 times the cost of a showroom model.