When I came back home after getting stuck in California due to the bad weather in Kansas, my first thought was to get my car started. But that had to wait because the temperature here in Charm City was in the single digits and I caught (I think) a flu on the way back. So I was stuck inside until I got over that enough I could go outside and look the car over.

I’ll go into more detail about my adventures coming home eventually, but for now just know that the plan was to visit my brother and family in Oceano for a couple weeks during the holidays by train. I would enjoy a lovely trip out to the west coast in a sleeper car roomette with all my meals provided for and just a carry-on bag with everything I needed for the trip. I’d sent all the clothes and other things I would need while there to him by mail. The plan was to travel light, kick back, and enjoy the ride there and back.

I’ve done that trip by train over the holidays several times with no trouble and it almost worked this time too. Snow and ice getting to Chicago had slowed the trains down but never stopped them. But on the trip back my train was stopped in Albuquerque and had to go back to Los Angeles due to bad weather in Kansas. This eventually turned into an additional two weeks in California, which I didn’t mind very much at all except the weather in Baltimore was getting cold and snowy enough I started worrying about the house and the car. I have an app now that lets me fiddle with the home’s thermostat setting remotely and check the outside temperature. I had the water to the house turned off…SOP whenever I travel…so I was not worried about frozen pipes. But I started obsessing about the roof leaking. That’s happened several times since I’ve owned the house…it’s a flat roof…and I worry about it every time it snows. But the house was fine when I got back. Life was simpler when I was a renter. 

My Mercedes-Benz is an ‘E’ class diesel sedan. You don’t want to be leaving a diesel sitting for long times in cold weather. I was pretty sure the local suppliers were pumping diesel with the usual anti-gel additives for cold weather before I left, but now I was also worried about the DEF tank heaters and the batteries. The batteries (a Mercedes ‘E’ class has two) would be running the DEF tank heaters the entire time and I was keeping my fingers crossed that they had enough juice to tide them over until I managed to get back. Since they’d just been replaced last year I should have been more confident than I was but I tend to over think these things. Also, I’d had to replace the DEF tank heaters at 120k (at a cost of nearly two grand!) and the car has almost 210k on it now. I was told then that the famous Daimler incremental improvement regime did not extend to the DEF tank heaters (it did apparently extend to the NOx detectors I’d had to replace at around 50k, but that put them into warranty territory).

When I was finally able to go outside and start the car up I was encouraged by the fact that the key-dongles opened the doors and flashed the lights without hesitation. I still had batteries. I inserted the key…my car was made before keyless go was standard…and clicked it over twice to the full power on position. I let it sit there for a few seconds while the car went through all the sounds of coming awake. My car doesn’t have glow plugs but, so I’m told, pre-heaters in the fuel injectors. I gave them time to come up to temperature. Then I turned the key to start. 

I have Never heard my car groan so painfully at cold start, but it was just for an instant and then it turned and caught right away. I felt a wave of relief. The plan was to just let it sit and idle until the engine got up to temperature, then drive it around the neighborhood for a bit and see what the tire pressure monitor says. I sat for a while just listening to the car.

Apart from the factory and distributor I am its first and only owner. I grew up in a period where the rule of thumb was you bought the car new and drove it for about 50k, then traded it in for another car. Wash, rinse, repeat. You did that because as cars got older they were more trouble. But that was Detroit back before Japan started kicking their butts, and it was never what you did with a Mercedes-Benz. Unless you were an empty status symbol seeker you kept your Mercedes for life. Especially if it is a diesel. And besides, the home I grew up in was a do it yourself, waste not want not, replace only if you can’t repair household. I kept my first car, a 1973 Ford Pinto for 136k. What I learned from it was you hold onto a car you come to know its every little quirk and sound, and intuitively how it behaves on this or that road surface. You and the car are one.

So I sat there listening to my car after it had sat for weeks in snow and ice and single digit temperatures and I could tell it was feeling sluggish though it was idling smoothly. That muscular diesel sound has always been reassuring to me in cold weather. I could see it needed road salt cleaned off it even though it hadn’t been driven anywhere. I assumed that was from passing salt trucks on my street, and splashing road slush onto it from passing cars. The windshield had a dusting of road salt and I pressed the wiper stalk to clear it off. Nothing happened.

Oh boy… So I popped the hood and got out to take a look. Ice was bulging out of my washer fluid tank. I was appalled. I use a special Mercedes washer fluid concentrate which I mix to stay liquid at -10 degrees and it never got that cold here while I was away. I popped the trunk and got out the bottle of washer fluid mix I top off the reservoir with. It was fine, no ice, not even a hint of it. But the reservoir under the hood had frozen. Someone during one of my service or car wash visits had topped off the reservoir with their own washer fluid and it wasn’t rated down to the temperatures we’d had. I had to go back inside, mix up some more washer fluid, and get a chisel to clear the ice out of the reservoir while I kept topping the reservoir off with good washer fluid.

Eventually I got it cleared of ice but the washer motor still wouldn’t run. I figured either it was now damaged and had to be replaced, or a fuse had blown when I made the first attempt at running it. So I made an appointment with the mechanics I use to have it looked at. In the meantime the engine was at temperature now, so it was time to take the car for a wee shakedown drive.

I’m here to tell you that there is no rental car I will ever enjoy driving more than my car. It felt like coming home sitting in its driver seat and navigating my way through the neighborhood. The car responded to my touch of the wheel and my foot on the pedals like an old friend. I could feel the road under me like I hadn’t with the rental cars I’d had in California. It was wonderful. I think there and then I promised myself no more train rides this year. I’ll drive it to Walt Disney World later in March. Maybe again in June for Gay Days.

Surprisingly the tire pressure monitor was telling me that I still had the correct air pressure in all four tires, despite the single digit temperatures. I tried the washer squirter one more time. This time, the engine compartment at temperature, it worked perfectly. All it needed was to be warmed up and the last of the ice inside melted. So I cancelled the mechanics appointment. Then I drove up I-83 to the suburbs and filled the tank with fresh diesel.