.....and will not run longer than a couple minutes afterwards before stalling again. It stalls while driving down the street, or just idling.

The car is a 1986 300SEL. It seems the model wasn't imported into the US until 1988, but I'm in Taipei. Information and parts are hard to find, and frikkin expensive because of absurdly high import taxes.

After I bought the car, I took it to the dealer for an inspection. Among other things, they warned me that the fuel pump relay would go soon, and I would know it because the car would just stall. It did just that, so I replaced the fuel pump relay. US$280

Then a couple weeks later, same thing; just stalls out of the blue. I had to have it towed to the dealer. This time he says it's the "air flow sensor". From what I can find online, it might also be called the "mass air flow meter". The dealer here said the part in Taiwan costs US$1800. (I think I can get it from the US for $700 plus shipping.)

My question is: Could a bad air flow sensor/mass air flow meter cause this kind of stalling? Any other logical causes?

 

Further to the previous post:

I spent 2 hours today with the service manager and about 3 different mechanics. Ironically, Saturdays are slow days for them. People here who have the money to buy a Benz also have drivers that take care of these matters during the week.

So here's what they said:

They hooked up some monitor to the air flow sensor to demonstrate that it was bad. The 'ohm' levels were way off and very erratic instead of changing smoothly. BUT, they said there could be one other item that could cause such stalling: the ignition control unit. They then proceeded to hook up a meter to both the old one and a new one to show me the difference and yes, it was obviously bad. The service manager said either thing could be causing the stalling. What to do, what to do.......

When listening to some of the mechanics, it sounded like one said that if it were the air flow sensor, then the stalling would occur during deceleration. In my case, the stalling occurred at idle, acceleration and steady driving speeds. Additionally, they said the poor acceleration performance was also caused by the bad ignition control unit. To demonstrate, I drove it around the parking lot with both the old and new ICU and the difference in acceleration was remarkable.

I decided that for now to replace the ICU. It was a 50-50 chance of being the culprit for the stalling, it's easier to install and a bit cheaper. They said to drive it around for a couple weeks and if the car stalls again, they can refund my money and go back to the air flow sensor. Since the stalling didn't occur during deceleration, I'm betting it wasn't the air flow sensor.

The ICU cost me about US$800. It was manufactured by Siemens, part number 008 545 64 32. Does that sound fair?

Now the little thing that is REALLY haunting me, is that the TRUE culprit for the stalling could have just been a frikkin loose wire. They showed me a little green wire just above the ICU, which he said transmitted a TD signal, that was loose. He said after tightening the wire, "most of the stalling" was resolved. I bet it resolved ALL of the stalling, but I'm scared to take the chance. Also, since the ICU did make the car accelerate so much better and they said it would improve fuel economy, I guess it makes since to still replace it, even if it's just a small chance that it was causing the stalling. I can't help but suspect that they still wanted to make some money and tightening a loose wire wasn't cutting it.

AAUUGGHH!!