Sprinter mechanics

D Team Brothers

Expert Expediter
Where have you found the best Sprinter mechanics? Outside of Boston, in Shrewsbury, Ma. I use Wagner Mercedes. They have a team of experienced techs. Years ago we fequently heard about a mechaic in western PA., who was refered to as the "Sprinter Doctor". Anyone know what happened to him and how is he doing?
 

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
I'll be seeing Doktor A Wednesday.
There's a good Sprinter tech in Weslaco, TX (Ed Payne Motors), and Corsicana, TX (Berry Dodge). Freedom Dodge in Lexington, KY is very good. My Sprinter tech at Parkway Chrysler in Benton, KY is good.
 

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
Visited Doktor A yesterday. Had an injector seal leak, the earliest states of Black Death. Was getting diesel exhaust smell in the cab for the past week. Pulled the cover and saw the telltale sigh, a thin amber shellac coating over the #1 injector. It turns out Black Death was well on its way, just not yet to the mid or late stages where the black, diamond hard ooze was filling up the top of the head. I caught it early, but despite pulling the cover two months ago and seeing pristine injectors, the seal had been leaking likely for "tens of thousands" of miles, and the Black Death ooze was beginning to fill the areas immediately surrounding the injector and the hold-down bolt. It certainly wasn't to the point where, like one guy, had overgrown and encrusted his oil filler cap to the point where that would no longer come off.

The Black Death was well entrenched down in the injector chamber and down in the hold-down bolt's chamber. The bold finally yielded after some tapping and twisting and some more tapping, and was removed while trailing globs of thick goo. The injector was not so yielding, and was effectively seized due to the goo and actual corrosion (like rust, which happens in about 10% of these cases, where moisture somehow had gotten down in the injector chamber. Not from fuel, but from some other method. And the cover is sealed, so at this point no one knows how it happens. Fortunately, it is indeed a rare thing.). So the injector had to be disassembled in order to remove it, which means the injector could not be saved and reused.

Once the injector and the seal was removed, all that Black Death down in the chamber must be removed in order to get a good seal with the new injector. Dealers and most other mechanics do not have the training nor the tooling to perform this task, which is why the standard procedure is to replace the head, which runs thousands of dollars. It's a tedious and delicate process involving specially made tools that resurface the smooth and threaded portions of the injector and hold-down bolt chambers. Then the chipped away Black Death particles must be removed from down inside the chamber.

Once all that it finished, it's time for the new injector and hold-down, and then reprogramming the new injector into the computer.

This stuff is as close to surgery as you're going to get on a vehicle, and it's why your dealer is likely ill-equipped to handle it. If they are equipped and trained to handle it, they are probably using the Injector Seat Resurfacing Kit that Doktor A invented, and it's the same one that Europarts has for rental. A dealer can do it, or even DIY, but I'd sure want to watch Doktor A do one first before I tried to tackle it myself.

He's fitting me in while working on, ironically, a Sprinter ambulance. I have a glow plug that's failed and needs to be replaced. We identified the culprit yesterday (#2, despite the DAD and the DRBIII tool saying #1), and will replace the glow plug and the module this morning. More on that after it happens.
 
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OntarioVanMan

Retired Expediter
Owner/Operator
(#2 despite the DAD and the DRBIII tool saying #1)

My tech believes it will identify the first faulty plug as #1 as it goes down the line searching for faults..so #4 could end up being #1 as the first 3 pass the test.....


Good thing you got in when you did....
 

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
Andy was skeptical with 400,000 on the van, but the glow plug came out with hardly any effort at all. That was replaced with a new plug, and the module was replaced with a new one that's a different design than the current module. It's a solid state module, no internal fuses to blow, so no need to re-wire it with external fuses and all that crap. Also, no need to replace all of the glow plugs out of fear that the next one that goes a week or two later will also, again, take out the module with it. When the glow plug goes, identify the blown plug, replace it, and clear the error code in the computer, no need to replace the module. Very kewl.
 

D Team Brothers

Expert Expediter
Excellent info and it sounds like Doctor A is the place to go with questions and repairs.
He is on my list for questions about leaking oil pans, transmission issues, and steering pump locking up. I should be able to keep him busy!!!
 

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
I wish I could accurately describe Andy Bittenbinder, but here's my best feeble attempt. He's a freak. Like the starship captain who knows every bolt, every weld on his ship, Doktor A knows every bolt, every weld, every system and subsystem, and not only every part, but every part of every part, and how they all work, how and why they fail, how to diagnose and identify, and most importantly, how to repair or replace what caused the failure.

He is incredibly accommodating in answering questions and offering advice, both in person and over the phone (and in e-mails). You can call him 24 hours a day, the phone will not wake anyone up at 3 in the morning, leave a message and he will return the call in the morning. He answers e-mails promptly, tho not as quickly during the day when he's working on a Sprinter, of course.

He's incredibly reasonable on parts, making little or nothing over his cost, and does not charge "booK' labor - he charges labor time only for what he puts in on the repair. Some of that time is for diagnostics, which in the end saves you huge over wasted labor time and unnecessary parts replacements. He's incredibly anal over details and proper diagnostics, so when he's done, you know, absolutely, that it's done right. What he did for me the last two days, not one in a hundred dealer mechanics could even do, and even if they could, they'd have charged at least twice what I paid.
 
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