23/09/2026
**UNFIXABLE? IS BACK. And this Mercedes has been waiting over a year for an answer.**
If we’ve been quiet on here, it’s because the workshop has been anything but. Jobs have been arriving, the diary’s been filling, and we’ve been building a new website between everything else. Somewhere in that lot, we remembered we’re supposed to tell you what we actually get up to.
So. Meet the 'Mercedes-Benz GLE plug-in hybrid'.
For more than twelve months, it’s been an expensive paperweight. Two garages had seen it, but neither had the equipment to diagnose the fault properly. Without a jump pack, almost nothing worked. Charge the 12V battery and by the following day it had dropped below 7V. A high-voltage battery fault was also keeping the vehicle firmly where it stood.
The owner had heard that a replacement battery could be around £15,000. At that price, I’d expect the shareholders to send a thank-you card. And a small parade.
With options running out, he found himself in a dark corner of a pub, drowning his sorrows, when someone whispered of Car Jesus. A being so hairy he could wrestle a car into submission with a single raised eyebrow.
Naturally, he said “Car Jesus” backwards into a mirror three times, then called Engine Clean on 0161 222 4643.
The mirror bit may have happened differently. We can confirm the phone rang.
The GLE was recovered to one of our partner garages. Out came the sexy yellow electrical gloves that cost an arm and a leg. First job: a non-invasive visual inspection. Before we start pulling things apart, we want to know what’s in front of us.
There are visible signs of coolant leakage. That needs investigating. Has coolant got somewhere it shouldn’t? Could it be connected to the high-voltage fault? Or is it a separate problem that’s turned up to make the day more interesting?
Too early to call.
Glenn rang the customer and got authorisation for three hours of deeper investigation and a report. Now the vehicle-specific diagnostic kit comes out and we follow the evidence.
I’m Level 3 trained on EVs. Glenn holds Level 4. If the trail leads inside the battery, he may have to dust off that certificate.
A simple fix? A battery strip-down? Something neither of us has thought of yet?
Find out in the next video.
Proper diagnostics. Done correctly.
