Mercedes 1993 400SEL Not Starting
 

Hey everyone,

My 1993 Mercedes (198,000 miles) stalled out on me on the way back from school yesterday. I had previous problems with her. Some days she would run like a new car, and other days she would have a rough time shifting. After discovering a leak in the tranny line, I re-fueled the tranny fluid and she was fine. So i was coming home from school, and about 2 blocks away from my school, the car tried to shift, and i heard was a grinding noise. The steering wheel locked up,(power steering i guess) and the breaks were really hard to press (ABS?). I managed to turn the wheel enough to pull over, and once i put the car in park, it took a second to shift into park and i heard another grinding noise. Scared out of my mind, I went out of the car and checked under the hood. I smelt gasoline (I just filled up the day before, yes I have been putting in premium). This had happened once before (minus the grinding noises). After waiting 5-10 minutes, i tried to re-start the car and it worked fine...until now (about a month or two). I wait 10 minutes and tried start her up, but with no prevail. I tried waiting again, and still no success. Originally when the car stalled the battery light came on, however that didn't make much sense because I tried starting the car several times. I put the key in the ignition, and when I turn the key all the lights turn on, but the noise the engine makes doesn't sound like its "spinning freely"/"turning over, but not igniting".


FYI: im only 17 years old, so i called my dad up right away. My dads a very handy man, and after having the car 11 years, he pretty much knows its guts. My dad called one of our friends who's a very good mechanic and met us by the car. We tried putting some starter fluid, no good. If anyone has any suggestions please help!!

Thanks

when the hard steering and hard brakes was the car running normal or was it stalled or very low rpm?

Once the car tried to shift resulting in the car stalling was when it was hard to steer, and hard breaks.

that's normal behavior when a car stalls as the power breaks and power steering is depended on the engine turning.

The timing of the tranny seems to be off. The reference sensor might be glitching or the tranny's cpu is going out. From what you described sounds like the transmission internal clutches are engaging to shift at the wrong times and causing stall. Has the fluid been changed recently?

Yes. There was a tranny fluid leak that we fixed about 2 weeks ago. so in the past month the car has gotten 3 or 4 new bottles of liquid put into it