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Well this is an interesting one, I've recently been having an issue where the car will not go past neutral into reverse or park. Sometimes it was remedied by pushing the car back and driving it forward a little bit (drive worked just fine) to solve the issue but now it's stuck in neutral and drive for good.
I called up a buddy from MBClinic on Tuesday and he walked me through a few steps of attempting to manually release the gear and pull power from the gear selector to see if it helped the issue to no avail. He thought it was the gear selector module itself that was bad ($695 p/n ), so I called around and no corporate dealership in the US stocks these parts, the only available units are in Germany I was told by both MBUSA and two independent mechanics.
I later called the owner over at StarTech Mercedes (excellent shop) and he told me that he was suspicious that was the issue since no one carries these gear selectors and he's never seen any failure patterns for them. I dropped off the car there this morning and fast forward to this afternoon and I get a call saying I think you were right, we tried adjusting the linkage and checking the operation of the transmission and everything is fine. It'll be the only second module that MBUSA has seen fail in years.
So now he's doing some further work and attempting to get the car back in operation by the weekend by potentially swapping in a used part if coding issues don't prohibit it.
Really surprised things unfolded this way to be honest, I guess I was a lucky one that became affected by a not-common-at-all issue on these cars. I'll post a final update but that's what's been up!
Recent pic of my baby in the rain at 2am, still running strong though.
Bummer man. Props to you for the fact that you seem to be handling it very well. Some people lose their freekin' minds over issues like this.
Water seems to be beading well so whatever wax you're using is working. Did notice that the drivers side city light is out. Was that one of the aznoptics bulbs? How long did it last?
Thanks man, I'm a bit frustrated but it's nothing I've come to be really shocked about - one the one hand I wouldn't say any Mercedes from the W211 era tops reliability charts, but on the other hand I've been in very few cars that make me smile as much as this one does, they're complex machines so I can forgive a few unexpected mishaps here and there. You gotta pay to play and I've always fixed issues immediately as they come up on this car.
As for the waxing, I wish I had the time to keep up on it as much as I want to. It rains nearly every afternoon but I guess the last of my acrylic sealant is hanging on for dear life and beading (some Meguiar's ultimate). They were one of the AZNOptics bulbs, and for some reason the one on the passenger's side has been fine since I first installed it, the one on the drivers side has burned out or flickered twice now. Not sure what's up with it.
08-28-2014, 01:08 AM
Gear Selector Failure
(some Meguiar's ultimate). They were one of the AZNOptics bulbs, and for some reason the one on the passenger's side has been fine since I first installed it, the one on the drivers side has burned out or flickered twice now. Not sure what's up with it.
