Well, colour us disappointed! Some medical issues have cropped up and although minor, will keep us in Canada for the next month or so. This is later than we would want to start heading southwest, so we'll make other plans in the upcoming weeks.
Meanwhile there are compensations around here. We enjoy roaming the back roads in the area, and the gravel roads are often at their best this time of year, well-plowed and smoother than they are in summer.
Here are a couple of snaps taken with my cellphone on a recent drive back from Owen Sound, :
We got the van into the "local" Mercedes dealer today (in Kitchener, only 1 1/2 hours away) to deal with the coolant leak. They found the problem this time, and replaced the water pump and a couple of related valves.
As sometimes happens, all did not go smoothly though. I had driven to Waterloo yesterday and stayed at our daughter's place in Waterloo for the night, to make it easier to get to the early van appointment. This morning the van wouldn't start! It had started and run fine yesterday, but wouldn't even turn over today, not even a "click". The Check Engine light was on, but no other diagnostics. The battery was fine.
After some fruitless head-scratching and discussion with the dealer's service manager, it was clear I needed a tow to the dealer. For the first time, I tried out our Good Sam Roadside Assistance service, and it worked fine. They had an Active Towing truck on the scene within an hour.
In the process of hooking up the van, the tow operator accidentally turned the key to Start, and the van started right up! This after at least 1/2 dozen earlier tries. The Check Engine light stayed on but it ran ok all the way to the dealer. The tow guy followed behind in case of problems. Cost of the "tow" covered by Good Sam.
Even with my late arrival the techies still managed to find and fix the leakage problem. However no reason for the non-start was found, so no fix for that. Hopefully it was related to the Check Engine light, which was caused by the bad water pump.
I know
people talk about how expensive maintenance is for Sprinters, but today
was a good example of getting our money's worth. This coolant leak was
hard to track down, but they stuck with it. Once they found the problem,
they had the parts to fix it, and they squeezed our van into their
schedule and fixed it today. All this covered under warranty for our 4+ year old
van. Good service and zero dollars today, great combination!
I did feel that I earned this very late breakfast, a short walk from the dealer. It was a long cold morning:
When poking around the van a couple of days ago, I noticed an odd puddle under the engine:
It seems to be a coolant leak. Very odd though, the van has just been sitting in the shed for the winter, hasn't been running since November. We've had a couple of very cold days recently though.
The dealer couldn't diagnose it from the pictures I sent, so I'll be taking the van in next week, weather permitting, and hopefully it will get resolved. I sure wouldn't start south with a problem like this lurking.
