Briscoe76

For some reason I can’t see tatebarrys question, but I had the exact same problem as you Tate, and you’ve got a failed ABS ring. I know it sounds daft, but because your car isn’t getting the same speed reading from all 4 wheels, it’s causing these problems. It’ll be one of the rear rings. £20 from eBay, £60 to fit. I had to do both of mine

That’s the other thing it can also be. There’s a quick check you can do on the actuator. Have someone turn the ignition on and off slowly. You stand and look at the turbo. You can see the actuator pop up every time thenignition is turned on. Are you on Facebook? If you are join this group. I’m on there along with hundreds of other 300 owners. Whatever problem crops up, I guarantee someone can help ?????? https://www.facebook.com/groups/chrysher300clubuk/?ref=share

Hello mate. Yep it’s there, you just need to remove the black plastic air intake pipe on the front of the turbo, below that is the swirl motor. You’ll see the plug plugged into the motor. You also have to remove a bracket if I remember. Unplug it from the motor and fit the resistor. Tape it down well and hey presto you’re back.

That is a bargain. Especially for genuine MB parts. I’ve had a few spares from MB for mine. The oil cooler seals. Only a tenner. I’d be inclined to leave your handywork in place until it starts whistling again!

I’m well chuffed that has helped. I’m no mechanic at all, but glad you got it sorted mate.

You never know, it could come in handy one day!. I do find it amazing though, that in all the literature for the car, nowhere does it mention the proper reason for the lightening bolt light to come on in a diesel model.

Lol, glad you liked it :-)

Hopefully this will be of some use to someone if the same happens, which sadly I believe it a common thing . I've had the resistor in place for a week now, and its been working perfectly. About 300 miles covered faultlessly. It was playing on my mind about the whole thing being held together with electrical tape, so I decided to buy the ready made part from the chaps at www.custom300cshop.co.uk Its the second time Ive used them, and they are really helpful, with fast deliveries. The part I ordered was the swirl flap emulator http://www.custom300cshop.co.uk/chrysler300c_swirlportemulator.html Its basically a resistor fitted into a purpose made, and very high quality plastic casing, which fits perfectly into the swirl flap plug. This should take the worry out of the electrical tape melting or degrading over time. It was £40, which some may say is a lot for a bit of plastic, however the fact that they have had these specially made, they fit perfectly, and they are a damn sight cheaper than a new swirl flap motor, I think its good value for money. Pictures below if you fancy a look. Cheers Matt.

HI Sean. I know theres some rubber intercooler pipes as well that run down the front of the engine to the intercooler, plus the metal one that exits the turbo (see photo) It might be worth checking these, as the metal one especially has a habit of leaking air.

Oh blimey, so did they have a go at resetting everything? It may mean that your ECU needs to be reflashed with the original software due to it being corrupted, hence having to go somewhere else. Ahh how simple life was, when we all drove Cortina’s lol. Let us know how it goes. Cheers Matt.

The chances are, all they’ll do is reset the error codes and you’ll be away. Annoyingly the off the shelf code readers can only read and clear top level codes, in order to access the ABS, BAS, gearbox etc codes, you have to have the expensive stuff.

That's a shame it didn't work, its always worth trying these things though. Yeah sadly these cars hate being jump started. I had a Chrysler Voyager a few years back that did the same thing as yours has now. A right pain in the a*se! Let us know how you got on, and what they did to cure it. All the best Matt.

Afternoon all. I thought I would share a bit of a story that happened to me this weekend, in the hope that it will help some others if the same thing happens to them. The model it concerns is any 300C with the Mercedes 3 litre V6 diesel. I'm guessing the newer models with the VM diesel will be totally different. So there we are, on the way to Wakefield from Essex where we live, merrily trotting along the motorway. All of a sudden the dashboard starts to chime repeatedly (as if i've left the headlights on and got out), the engine cuts out completely, and on the dashboard are the engine management light, and the red lightening bolt, with a reverse bracket either side (see attached photo). We coast to a stop onto the hard shoulder, and i try to restart the car. It turns over and over, but refuses to fire up. The missus gets on the phone to the RAC, and we're told there's roughly a two hour wait, so this gives me a bit of time to do some Googling before the patrol arrives. Now then, if you refer to the handbook, it clearly states (even in the diesel supplement) that the lightening bolt light indicates there is a fault with the "Electronic Throttle Control". This is utter nonsense. As it turns out, on the diesel models only, this light refers to a fault with either the Swirl Flap Motor, or the Turbo Actuator. Annoyingly this isnt listed in any of the handbooks that come with the car. Poor show Chrysler! Whenever you turn the ignition on in the car, you can see the arm of the turbo actuator raise up. So if this is the problem, then its very easy to diagnose. I tried this little test, and sure enough, the turbo actuator arm wasn't popping up when my wife turned the ignition on, so naturally I thought this was the problem. Sadly I was wrong. What had happened to my car was this.... Over time, the seal around the air intake on the front of the turbo degrades. This allows a small amount of oil to drip onto the swirl flap motor, which is situated directly below. (very poor design). This oil had eventually seeped inside the motor, causing it to short out. This short had instantly popped fuse number 15 under the bonnet, which in turn had caused the engine to shut down while doing 70mph to protect itself. I didn't have the handbook in the car with me sadly, so searching on the internet just have me fuse diagrams of the petrol models, which on those shows its for the injectors. Again as it turns out, fuse 15 in the front fuse box does completely different things on the diesel models. It protects the following.... A/C Clutch, A/C Pressure regulator, Crankcase Vent Heater, EGR Valve, Engine Control Module, Fuel Pump, Glow Plug Module, Swirl Flap Motor, Oxygen sensors.. So I replaced the blown fuse with a spare 20 amp, and the car fired straight up. It was now in limp mode, and showing the EML and Lightening light, but it was drive-able up to about 80 mph, albeit a bit slow getting there. By this time, the RAC man had arrived. Now there is nothing worse that someone interfering when a pro is at work, so when he arrived, I left him to it, and he plugged the diagnostics in, and it threw up a ton of errors all related to things connected to this fuse. All except the swirl flap motor. He was a bit confused at first, but then I mentioned that I think it might be the swirl flap motor. He hooked up all his testing gear to it, ran a load of tests, and sure enough confirmed to me that the motor was dead. He then cleared the ECU codes, started the car, and only then did it throw up a specific Swirl Flap related error. HE gave me some spare fuses, and after a quick road test, we were on our merry way albeit in limp mode. Now to fixing it. The cheapest place I could find to supply and fit a new motor quoted £575 plus VAT. The motor is just over £100, but the labour involved is a joke. Anything that is situated inside the VEE of the engine (Swirl Flap Motor, Oil Cooler) etc needs major open heart surgery to fix it. Annoyingly both the motor and the cooler seals have known faults, so they couldn't be in a worse place! If you fancy forking out all that money to have the motor replaced, then that is no doubt the best way in the long run, however there is a quick fix for £1.99 and YES it does work perfectly. Get yourself some 4K7 resistors off of ebay, they are £1.99 for 50. Remove the engine cover, then remove the intake pipe that runs from the airbox to the front of the turbo. Right below the turbo, you will see a black box. This is the offending motor. On the right of the motor is a multi plug held in with a grey clip. Remove the metal bracket above the plug, and pop the plug off. Grab a resistor, and bend the legs in such a way that they will fit snugly into the two centre holes in the plug. Theres 4 in total. Once you have put the resistor in, and you can confirm its in there properly. Tape it up with electrical tape so the resistor wont fall out. Replace the metal bracket, and the air intake pipe, leaving the plug sticking up so you can get to it again in the future if you need to. Then start up the car, and stand back in amazement as both the engine management light and the lightening bolt lights extinguish, and the car comes back out of limp mode. Take the car for a drive, and you will see that it drives as good as new. What you have done here, is fool the car into thinking the swirl flap motor is working again. WHen in fact its now disconnected. You shouldnt notice any difference in performance or fuel economy at all. The emissions may be up slightly when cold is all. So to summarise, if your car cuts out with the lightening bolt on. 1) Coast to a stop 2) Curse, swear, have a fag, but don't despair 3) Check fuse 15 in the front fuse box, and replace 4) Start the car and drive home in limp mode - The car will do upto 80mph 5) Order your resistors from Ebay, making sure they are the 4K7 type 6) Still use your car while you are waiting for them to be delivered, remembering that it wont pull away as quick as usual 7) Fit the resistor at the weekend in the rain 8) Stand back, chest puffed out, hands on hips, telling the neighbours you've just saved almost 700 quid :-)

I would recommend parking the car somewhere safe, disconnect the battery for 15 minutes, then reconnect it and start the car up. That should reset the ECU and clear the corruption that occurred when the car was jump started. Cars with lots of electrics like ours, hate being jump started, as the power surges that occur seem to mess everything up. Give it a try.

Have a quick check here. It could be the seal leaking. http://www.chrysler300c.org.uk/catalogue/pops/th8.html

http://www.custom300cshop.co.uk/antirollbarbushes.html

So the 300c Saga continues lol. Over the past couple of months I've had a clunking from the front suspension progressively getting worse and worse. I can only describe the noise as something similar to when you knock the skittles down in ten pin bowling. Its a loud THUD, that can be felt through the car floor on both sides. Having read through the forums of people spending hundreds of pounds on replacing this, and replacing that, I found a post where someone had replaced the anti roll bar bushes for "a couple of dollars" and the problem was cured. So always wanting to start cheap and work up, i bought new bushes from that excellent online shop www.custom300cshop.co.uk for about £20 (i think) and i've just had them fitted. It literally took 20 minutes to fit them, and hey presto the car is silent again!!!!! I can highly recomment this first of all, before trying more expensive fixes! Cheers Matt.

Does the whistle happen only happen under throttle? It sounds like it could be a split in one of the turbo hoses. I had a similar thing happen to my diesel Vectra a few years back. After a while the car started to smoke badly as the split got bigger.

It really is isn’t it!!! Something so insignificant can cause so many problems all at once lol

Hi Eigtpint. I tried to post a reply on Saturday but for some reason the site was down. Anyway success all round. My local garage fitted it for me, not the easiest job by all accounts. The old ring had completely separated. So they fitted the new one, and within a few seconds of pulling away all the lights went out. Plus the gears changed perfectly, and the cruise control works again. I’m so pleased!!!

Just ordered one. £7. Thanks so much for your help.

Hi Eightpint. Our cars are basically the same then. As although mines registered as a 2008, the manufacturer date in the dashboard software is 2006. I think the gremlins are built into these cars sometimes. Everyone seems to have the same sort of problems. One common problem for all the diesels is the oil cooler leaking oil. It’s a ten minute job to change the seals, but 8 hours labour to get to the damn cooler. Mine leaks a bit but it’s so slight I haven’t bothered with it so far.

This is how small the piece of plastic is you need to cut off of the inside of the switch to enable it to rotate back past ‘off’ and activate the auto headlamps.

Regarding the HID module, yep all you need to do is source a replacement, plug it in and it will be fine. I haven’t noticed any difference in the headlights since I unplugged it, so I haven’t bothered with a replacement. As for the sat nav thing, I don’t have it installed in my car so I’m not sure about that.

Would you have an eBay link for the ring at all?