Ohh, Nooo…

Well, it was bound to happen at some point. And that point was on I-70, near Grinnell, KS, just after 2:00 on a Friday afternoon, when our engine suddenly quit, every light on the dashboard came on, and we coasted to a stop on the shoulder. Trying to restart the engine failed. Jump-starting failed. We had fuel, the fuel filter wasn’t clogged, there were no ominous fluids leaking from underneath, not overheating, plenty of oil, no smoke, nothing obviously broken or burnt – no failure or problem that I could figure out with my limited skills and automotive knowledge. So we made our first-ever call to the roadside service provider we’ve had on retainer ever since we got the motorhome (Good Sam). They found us a diesel repair shop in Colby, Kansas, about 40 miles up the road from where we were stalled, and dispatched a tow truck to take us up there.

The tow truck arrived and the driver hooked us up. We got to the truck repair place as they were about to close. The manager said we could spend the night behind the shop where the tow truck left us and they’d have a look at what’s going on in the morning. Fortunately, they’re located at a busy truck stop and are open on Saturdays. Unfortunately, what they found was that there was more going on than they could tackle and we’d need access to Mercedes’ own special diagnostic equipment to figure it out and get it fixed. Bummer! After another call to the roadside repair service, and a whole bunch of conversations with Sprinter repair shops and Mercedes dealers (none nearby, and all between 250-300 miles away), we got an appointment with a Sprinter dealer near Denver and arranged our tow for Monday morning so we could arrive when they were open, and we spent the rest of the weekend camped out behind the shop and going for walks around Colby, KS.

I’ve got to say a few words here about Cole, the driver who was dispatched to help us when we broke down. An incredibly helpful and thoughtful guy, he helped us get set up with the repair shop and then he stopped by to see us Saturday morning – on his own volition and on his own time – in case we were going to need help moving the rig into the bay. He was also our driver for the 240-mile, 3-1/2 hour trip up to the dealer near Denver. We had a great time getting to know him, hearing about his family and how his kids are growing up, quizzing him about what it’s like in Colby, KS, and swapping stories of our respective adventures on the road, right up until we pulled in to the Mercedes dealer in Westminster, CO. We said goodbye to Cole, leaving him with a bottle of the Mad River Valley’s finest Vermont Maple Syrup as a token of our appreciation, and went inside to talk with our service rep.

To our great chagrin, though this dealer freely makes appointments (cool!) on short notice (even better!), they are extraordinarily busy and our “service appointment” was really just a time for checking our vehicle in and getting us in their queue. They were otherwise distressingly vague about when they might actually get to us. Not having a whole lot of options here, we found a hotel that was walking distance from the dealer, grabbed some clothes and a few other things from the rig, and reluctantly settled in for a (hopefully) short stay. Indeed, it took the shop a few days to get to our vehicle. They soon identified a part within the CAN bus (the truck’s own computer network) that needed to be replaced. Unfortunately, the part would have to come from Germany, it was back-ordered so the dealer had to wait 48 hours before they could “escalate” it (their term – I don’t know what it means in this context, and they didn’t explain, but I assume it would get things moving in some way), and they couldn’t say how long it might be before they received the part. This was a problem for us, since our refrigerator and freezer were full of food and we wouldn’t be able to keep it running while the rig sat indefinitely without external power in the dealer’s lot.

In the meantime, my friend Bob who lives near Denver very generously offered us a place to stay for a while (and he even had space in his basement fridge for the stuff from ours so we could shut everything down in the rig) so we picked up a rental car, bought a couple of foam coolers and a duffel bag at Walmart, emptied the fridge, grabbed a few more things from the motorhome, and departed for Bob’s house. (As I’m writing this, Sue is at work on a post about our visit with Bob, which has been formidably awesome – here is a link to that post.)

After a week in the hotel and another week and a half at Bob’s, we got the call from Mercedes that our vehicle was ready for us to pick up. The part had come in, they installed it, ran a few more tests, found and fixed a few more problems, and declared it good to go. Elated, we drove up to get the motorhome, dropped off the rental car, and proudly returned to Bob’s house to get things back in order and set up for traveling again. Reloading our gear, checking the tires (including a visit to the tire store to take care of a stubbornly leaking valve), sanitizing the water system. On a Friday afternoon, exactly three weeks after the events in this post started, I set off around the block to go to a storm drain to purge the fresh water tank when the engine suddenly quit, every light on the dashboard came on, and we coasted to a stop at the side of the road. Damn. Another tow back to Westminster.

After some more waiting for our time in the shop, followed by some more diagnostics and testing, they found a fault in our Engine Control Module (ECM). This is the main computer that controls pretty much everything that goes on in the engine and coordinates everything else that it doesn’t directly control itself, and we needed a new one. The dealer said they could only order through Mercedes from Germany, it was on back-order so they’d have to wait 48 hours to escalate, but this could take longer to get than the last part, even a few months, if we could get one at all. My own investigations in various online Sprinter forums indicated that Mercedes no longer provides replacement ECMs for vehicles as old as ours. With some more digging, I found a source for a remanufactured ECM for our truck (Precision ECU, near Chicago). The dealer agreed to work with the rebuilt part, so we drove back up to Westminster, picked up the old ECM, and sent it off to Chicago to swap for the remanufactured replacement. Right now we’re waiting for that to arrive. When it does, we’ll take it up to the dealer and, with luck, they’ll reprogram it, put it in and this will solve all the problems. We’ll let you know how it goes!

For those interested, more pix in these albums: Tow #1, Tow #2, Tow #3

[This final paragraph might make this post show up in a search for someone who is, for one reason or another, interested in finding a replacement ECM (aka ECU aka CDI) for a 2007-2009 Dodge (also Mercedes and Freightliner) Sprinter 3500 (NCV3). Our rig is a 2008 Winnebago View, which is the same vehicle as an Itasca Navion.]

EPILOGUE (10/10/2025) – We received the remanufactured ECM on Tuesday morning, drove it up to the dealer, and went out for a late breakfast. When we returned, all the problems were solved! We took the long way home so we could give the RV a solid test (without getting too far away from the dealer, just in case). It passed. The next day we did a more rigorous test drive – highways, stop-and-go traffic, mountain roads. We drove for 4 hours without calling a tow truck! Our confidence restored, on Thursday we re-packed our stuff and freshened up the water systems. With one day to spare on Friday we played some more music and on Saturday – 5 weeks and 3 days after we moved in, and 6 weeks and 1 day after our initial breakdown, we drove away from Bobby’s house to our new base at the “official” hotel for the BGU jam.