Turbo Resonator problem

Ancote

New member
I had an experience driving a Camper with the 5 cyl Mercedes from Tampa to Montreal
I lost the most of the power of the engine and the engine light came on.
When I arrive home I did put my OBD2 scan tool on it to have a P0299 code reflecting problem with the Turbo
I then dismantle the hose going to the turbo to find out that the turbo resonator was busted, it is made of 2 parts of plastic
and it is separate on the top. I replace with a new one and every thing whet normal.

Is there some of you guys experiment this problem with your Sprinter ?
 

BaywoodBill

pre-Yuppiedom
Yeh, Ancote, the resonator failure has plagued a few of us.

The most recent version of the resonator (the Q05 version) is possibly stronger than earlier versions. On our van we have the aluminum substitute that is not an official part for the engine.
 

Ancote

New member
Thanks for all this info Dick, I will change mind for the Aluminuim on to avoid having the problem on the road in vacation. :thumbup:
Andre :smilewink:
 

rvdriverca

New member
I have had 4 so far. And I will not go after-market until I'm out of warranty. I feel it's MB problem and they should improve it at there expense, not mine, just my time. I only have motor home, but the more it breaks down the louder I do yell, tell everybody including people who may be thinking of buying a Sprinter.:bash:
 

dickreid1

New member
Ancote,

The newer Q5 resonator seems to be just a little stronger than the earlier models, but they still fail when they get very hot and when the turbo boost is high. (Big, long hills on a hot day). Sprinter dealers change them at no charge.

The turbo resonator functions the same as a silencer on a gun. The $100 aluminum tube from Riodan fills the space between the hoses but it cannot replace the silencer. With it expect to hear the turbo's high pitched whines and chirps. Try turning up the radio to mask the sounds.

Dick from Florida
 

rvdriverca

New member
Last year summer in Spokane,WA., #3, at time they told me that Q5 would be installed. However it had to be replaced in Cleveland, Ohio 4 day's latter, #4, Physically, I'm unable to go under the van to see what's there now. I have about 20k miles since than no problem with that. intake air temp. censer and transmission that is a other story. This van, being a motor home and not a commercial vehicle it has had a lot of problems. It is a 2006 158". cheers
 

sailquik

Well-known member
Just a quick question here..... do you folks that are having frequent trouble with Turbo Resonator failure use the ScanGageII to monitor how hard the engine is working?
Do you shift down (manually) early when heading up hills to keep the "LOD" from going over 99%?
I have probably 15K miles pulling a fairly heavy trailer and I've been driving by the temp gage and and Scangage II set to read LOD (% engine loading) and
I've had no problems, plus I get much better mileage (12.5 mpg w/o ScanGageII vs 15-17mpg with the ScanGage.
The Sprinter gets as much a 23 mpg without the trailer.:hmmm:
Just wondering if the TR problem is more common with motorhome conversions (pretty heavy)/Sprinters towing trailers where you are running the engine at => 99% LOD all the time because you don't know that it's that heavily loaded without the ScangageII?
Shifting down early can lower the "LOD" by 10-15% and keeps the temps down as well.
Roger
 
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220629

Well-known member
Sailquik,
I agree with what you're saying, but I haven't invested in a Scangage II.

I posted this a while ago

http://www.sprinter-source.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3547

It didn't generate much discussion, but I did get a good response from one person with more experience than I have. Towing my 2800#'s or so I don't find the tranny shifts down soon enough for my liking.

I personally think the USA/Canada RV conversion Sprinters may see some of the toughest service of any Sprinters around. They are generally just so loaded with doo-dads. I also think many RV'ers (not just Sprinter RV'ers) treat/drive their vehicles more like daily drivers than the heavily loaded vehicles they are. Daily driver people don't usually watch a temperature gauge and slow down if it rises. That doesn't help the situation.

Flame away if anyone chooses, but I said "many" and it is totally just my biased very subjective opinion. Hope this doesn't hurt.
Just a quick question here..... do you folks that are having frequent trouble with Turbo Resonator failure use the ScanGageII to monitor how hard the engine is working?
Do you shift down (manually) early when heading up hills to keep the "LOD" from going over 99%?
I have probably 15K miles pulling a fairly heavy trailer and I've been driving by the temp gage and and Scangage II set to read LOD (% engine loading) and
I've had no problems, plus I get much better mileage (12.5 mpg w/o ScanGageII vs 15-17mpg with the ScanGage.
The Sprinter gets as much a 23 mpg without the trailer.:hmmm:
Just wondering if the TR problem is more common with motorhome conversions (pretty heavy)/Sprinters towing trailers where you are running the engine at => 99% LOD all the time because you don't know that it's that heavily loaded without the ScangageII?
Shifting down early can lower the "LOD" by 10-15% and keeps the temps down as well.
Roger
 

sailquik

Well-known member
Hi Aqua Puttana,
I saw your prevoous thread a while back, but I wasn't "up to speed" enough on the Sprinter and
the ScanGage at that time.
The reason I asked this question was to alert anyone with a Sprinter that's carrying any sort of load
that they probably have no idea how hard they are working (perhaps straining is a better term) their Sprinter
if they don't have a ScanGage II or something similar to give them "the rest of the story".
I think you are correct, they drive it just like a car....and figure the DC/MB engineers have it all figured
out. The GAVW on my '06 3500 SHC 158" WB high roof is 9,990lbs.
Unfortunately, putting a heavy RV body on a Sprinter and then filling it with all the "goodies" some
folks need to go "RV'ing" probalby puts the GVW well above what the engineers had in mind.
Add a trailer over about 1500# GVW (or a trailer that creates a lot of wind resistance like mine) and
you can very quickly find the engine at near 100% load quite a bit of the time.
This is OK, if you have an understanding of small Turbodiesels...and get something like a ScanGage II so you can
tell what the loading is, what the temps (various places with sensors) are, and you can take steps to
drive your Sprinter more economically and lighten up on the drive train whenever possible.
You are running your Sprinter in the 2100-2400 rpm range pulling your 2800 lb. boat (is that the weight
of just the boat or is that GVW of the board and trailer?).....Right?.
My cargo trailer weighs about 1k lbs. more and I've found that I can drop the LOD (% engine loading) by
10 to 15% with a big improvement in fuel comsumption (12.5 mpg vs 15-17 mpg) by shifting down into
a lower gear at 2400 rpm.
I do not (unless I'm not towing or it's an emergency and I don't have time to shift down) stomp the accellerator
pedal to have the auto trans drop down a gear.
I shift it down manually @ 2400 RPM in top gear, and the engine revs to about 3200 rpm in 4th gear.
This drops the (LOD) by as much as 15% and raises the MPG from < 5 to 10-12 mpg.
I have my ScanGage II set to read:
Upper LH= Speed (MPH) Upper RH= LOD (% engine loading ....0-99%)
Lower LH= RPM (Engine Speed) Lower RH= MPG (constantly changes as you apply more or less accelerator)
With these readings, I can monitor what the engine is doing and where to downshift/upshift to get the least
engine load and the max. fuel mileage.

There are quite a few other parameters you can monitor, but these seem to work the best for me.
I've checked the Speed readout wth as many as 3 GPS units running at the same time and the ScanGage "MPH"
readout is right on with the GPS (the ScanGage II reads only full 1 mph changes, the GPS units all read to 1/10 mph).
This corrects the 2-3 mph "error" that DC built into the Sprinter to keep you from getting a ticket.

My guess would be that if you put in a ScanGage II you would find that you are running at or near
99% at anything below 2400 RPM when towing your boat.
Also without the LOD reading, you let the Sprinter shift up itself, but nearly any time you accellerate
(even slowly from a stop sign or red light) you will find that you push the accelerator much too far down
and the LOD goes to 99% (the Max it can read) and stays at 99% until the van gets fully up to speed.
You are wasting alot of fuel this way.
I have found that by easing off the accellerator at around 85-90% load I get up to speed just as fast
(sometimes faster as the van upshifts at a lower RPM when the LOD is < 90%) but uses far less
fuel.
No, I do not have any interest in the manufacture/sales/promotion of the ScanGage II!
If they sell 1 million ScanGages, or 2 Scangages my cost was still about $125.00 and my profit
(other than savings on fuel and maintenance) is zilch/zero.
I just feel that it's a Sprinter driver's "best friend" as it allows you to keep everything in a
range that gives you the best performance...the best economy....and the best longevity.
My guess is that most Sprinter drivers without a ScanGage II (or something similar) are wasting
enough fuel that the addition of a ScanGage will allow them to recover the $125 cost in 6 months
to a year while at the same time "teaching them" more efficient and less damaging (to the Sprinter Drive
train) driving habits.
Roger
 
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220629

Well-known member
Sailquik,
It seems you've been learning quite a bit watching the Scangage II. Not being a gadget person I wasn't inclined to spend the money to replace my generic code reader, but maybe it should go on my Christmas wish list.

Glad to hear that you think my "feel" of the Sprinter shifting while towing is not far off base. (My Grandfather's quip was, "I met a really intelligent guy the other day, he agreed with most everything I said.")

My J/22 sailboat class weight is 858 kg (about 1890#) with 13 kg corrector weight. I've always figured about 900# for trailer and gear not allowed in the class weight. All up boat/trailer may really be closer to 3000#. Generally 2 or 3 people travel in the van, some tools, spare race and camping stuff for staying at the regatta. Let's say 1200# in the van. Total trailer and stuff probably 4200#. Maybe even more, the weight added when you camp or travel goes up pretty quickly.

Do you have 15 or 16 inch wheels? My 2004 Low roof runs 16". That will effect your RPM comments if someone applies your suggestions.

Thanks for the detailed input and reply. vic
 
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skinnywinny

New member
RVDriverCA...do you know if any of these failures were the Q5 version?
.

Yes. I posted these pictures on the Yahoo View/Navion forum: http://http://autos.ph.groups.yahoo.com/group/View-NavionTech/photos/browse/b055 You need to enlarge the pics to easily read the script.

It seems that most of the forum members have changed to the aluminum eliminator. Those that haven'
t, carry a spare resonator.

The sprinter rv, loaded for a trip, runs about 10,500#. Even driving in Florida, my scanguage will hit 99% LOD, going over interstate overpasses. Thats using cruise control set at 65mph.

My tricked-out resonator has about 1000 miles on it. No leaks, yet. I will be taking it over the Rockies next month for a true test.

Pat 06 View, Fl.
 
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sailquik

Well-known member
Aqua Puttana,
I have the 15" wheels, but I think I've heard that DC "engineered" the speedos on all their vehicles to read
2-3 mph high, regardless of wheel size.
You can change the tire diameter and correct for this, but I find I don't often look at the analog speedo
in the center of the console, just keep an eye on LOD and MPH on the ScanGage.
Once I set the recently installed cruise control the Sprinter runs down a flat road within +- 0.3 mph all by itself, at the
absolute minimum LOD and max. MPG. This is really nice!
I keep the GPS units going as they have proved very valuable when I got clocked at 70 MPH in a 55 MPH zone by
a State Trooper. I was actually going 62.0 mph (verified by 2 GPS units and the ScanGage).
The trooper's radar caught me as we met going around an S-bend and his radar was at least 7 mph off.
Took printouts of my actual speed for the 1/4 mile preceeding the S-bend and thru the S-bend and the
Prosecutor immediately reduced the fine by about half to 64 mph in a 55 zome which carries no points.
R
 

rlent

New member
Took printouts of my actual speed for the 1/4 mile preceeding the S-bend and thru the S-bend
Yeah, it would be my luck to to try and do something like that ...... or show the trooper the "Max Speed" from the Trip Computer on my Garmin:

Me: "Look here officer - my GPS records my maximum speed ....... and I wasn't speeding"

Trooper: " ....... ahhhh ..... yeah ...... then why does it say 254 MPH ?"


(a Max Speed that was "recorded" on my Garmin Street Pilot 7200)
 

sailquik

Well-known member
Hi Baywood Bill and rlent,
If you have Garmin GPS devices you can download your tracks from handhelds (I have GPS-12/GPS76/GPS 76C) and from a laptop running NRoute with
a GPS 10 or GPS 18 to a laptop into Mapsource.
If you break up the track data in Mapsource you can plot each individual segment, take the time/distance and get the speed.
If you want I can send you some of the photos that I took of where the ticket occurred, how I broke out the GPS Data, and some data
reports with the distance and time.
It's funny you should mention showing the trooper the "max speed' readout.
I got about the same reaction that you suggest....Trooper said I don't care what your little box says, MY radar clocked you at 70mph so you were
going 70 mph, and the ticket will read 70 mph!
I went back and photo'd the skid marks where the trooper turned around, and took photos from the direction the trooper was going (to show the S-curves
and all the powerlines and a large electrical substation) and then photos from my direction of travel to show that the radar wasn't pointing at my Sprinter
for more that a couple of nano seconds.
Send me an email address and I'll send along some photos and printouts.
Has anyone else noticed that Sprinters seem to have alot of "extra return" when clocked by police radar?
Roger
 
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windsprinter

New member
:cheers: on getting the best of the trooper! Too many of these guys get their jollies from little power trips and won't say they are wrong! Great use of a GPS, and it probably paid for itself there! I've often thought this could help out in that kind of situation, but I've never heard of anyone actually doing it before!

Almost all GPS now will allow you to download the tracks (you want tracks, not waypoints or routes). Lots of programs can do it, though most cost some money for fully functional ones. I think if you have bought map software for a GPS (like MapSource) then these all have routines to allow downloading/saving the tracks. Even Google Earth can accept GPS connection (I think its with the $20 upgrade version), though I'm not sure it will show speeds between each logged point.

I used to do a lot of work in the bush that required knowing where you were; it was all compass triangulation, chain or hipchain, or odometer work then; I also was navigator on a few long-distance sailing races before GPS. I absolutely LOVE GPS, it makes my work so much easier, and I still think its total magic that it can tell you where you are anywhere on earth within a couple of metres. And to get out of a speeding ticket when you are innocent, (or your fine reduced even when your not!) is a great bonus!
 

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