M272 Camshaft position sensors

When you own a modern Mercedes-Benz, you seem to be playing constant whack-a-mole with the check engine light. I’ve written before how silly I think the check engine light is, but we’re stuck with it. Personally, I would just drive older cars, but this is not for everyone and my wife has a 2007 E350 Wagon. There were two codes this time.

The first set of codes were complaining about the correlation of the camshaft and the crankshaft on one bank. I had previously changed the magnetic actuators, which temporarily fixed the problem. If the car didn’t sit outside the […]

M272 Camshaft adjuster replacement

I really dislike the check engine light. To me its an altogether silly concept given the digital dashboards cars are equipped with. It can mean anything from a loose fuel cap to a destroyed engine, so consequently people just ignore it. Modern cars know a whole lot more about what is wrong with them. Instead of posting a reasonable error message on the dash read out, like they do for a blown bulb, you get the check engine light. My wife’s E350 had the light come on a few weeks ago. You could also tell that the engine wasn’t as […]

M272 Crankshaft Position Sensor

Recently the E350 wagon has been playing up. It started out by occasionally losing power, then progressed to stalling. At the times this would happen, the check engine light would be illuminated. After a while the check engine light would be on around half the times the car would be driven. In order to diagnose this, I plugged in my scanner to the OBD2 port. There were a few saved codes. The first one was P0335 Crankshaft Position Sensor A circuit. There were also a couple of misfire codes, and a code about the tumble flaps in the intake manifold. […]

M272 Balance Shaft Issues – E350

I went to look at an 2006 E350 W211 Estate today and had learned on the Topklasse forum that the M272 engine manufactured from 2005-2007 suffers from a potential defect. From what I understand as this engine is a 90 degree V6, there were additional components required to make it run smoothly and these and the timing gear can suffer from premature wear. More information can be found here. The part is called the Balance Shaft. The ideal angle for a V6 is 60 degrees. The M272 is 90 degrees so it can be built alongside a V8. 90 degrees […]