qtla9111 wrote:
Lou Morris wrote:
Update: we crossed the border yesterday morning and submitted the ten-year permit application with my new passport as advised. We received it without any issues, then scraped off the old one (saved it just in case) stuck on the new one, and off we went.
That was a relief! Wasn't looking forward to having to retreat back to Arizona. (Almost had to go back later anyway due to what appeared to be some serious transmission issues with the Sprinter that left us periodically with no power and holding up traffic on those no-shoulder highways, but some quick diagnostic work at the Hermosillo Mercedes dealer sorted that out.)
Thanks for the good advice about the permit.
That was good news Lou. Could you share with us your transmission issue, how long it took and possibly the cost?
Sure. It might actually save Sprinter owners grief someday.
Sprinters like ours have 5 speed auto transmissions with tiptronic manual control that allows you to up and down shift with a tap of the gear stick. Handy for dealing with steep hills. But a few days ago we noticed that our auto trans would get stuck in drive and not allow us to downshift. Then we'd shut down and restart the engine and it would be OK. We hoped it was a temporary thing, and as we do software dev it reminded us of how a computer behaves sometimes. We decided to roll with it. Hah!
After getting our 10 year permit yesterday and setting off toward Santa Ana, the transmission suddenly disengaged entirely. Not good. Though we had the gearshift in Drive and were crusing along at about 60 mph, it went into neutral spontaneously while still in Drive and left us with no power. We were forced to pull over as best we could (not much room on those highways) and shut down. We'd start up and it would be OK for a while, and then it happened again. And again. We pulled into a Pemex to regroup, go online to research and consider our options. Worst case, we'd have to turn back.
I scanned several Sprinter forums and found a few folks who'd ran into similar problems over the years. On one forum a Sprinter mechanic explained how Sprinter transmissions can easily be affected by even a mismatched brake bulb, or a poorly wired trailer, which can cause chaos with the system computer and as a result affect the transmission. This reminded me that I'd recently replaced a brake bulb with one I had laying around. Could it be that simple? I yanked that one out, and even unplugged our tow car plug, and we set off again. Made it through Hermosillo, started to feel maybe it was indeed an electrical problem,and then the engine light came on and we lost power again, nearly getting bumped by a big truck. Bummer.
We finally located a Mercedes dealer with Sprinter mechanics in Hermosillo and rushed there (it was the end of the day on Friday) hoping not to break down again. They kindly plugged in their diagnostic device, which communicated with the Sprinter computer and up came a list of system errors. The device then auto-rebooted our system computer and all the errors went away, and the mechanic then said all was OK. No problems he could find. We're good.
We were thrilled, if a little disbelieving, and then we foolishly drove on to San Carlos in the dark. But the Sprinter performed flawlessly. No more transmission issues.
So apparently it was just a computer issue. Maybe the problems were caused by installing the wrong brake bulb, but I don't know that for sure yet. The mechanic printed out the error code report for us but it is all in Spanish. We'll translate it all at some point and try to sort it all out. In the meantime, the problem has so far not happened again.
Amazingly, the service manager said there would be no charge, just tip the mechanic, which we happily did. Wow. Such is Mexico. (I can guarantee our Denver Mercedes dealer, after hitting us for a few hundred, would have been trying to upsell us on a new transmission about then.)
Tomorrow we embark on the 10 hour drive from San Carlos to Mazatlan. Hopefully our transmission cooperates.
