_Ryan

I was recently driving when the car suddenly died. ESP and BAS warnings came on as well as ABS light. Car would crank but would not restart. Towed home. Started up when I got home but ESP BAS and ABS lights were still on.

I bought the carsoft i980 scanner for Mercedes thinking I could save a little bit of money vs buying the full star system.

I can communicate with several modules in the car, SRS, door modules, airmatic, etc, but it will not communicate with the ESP module. Thinking the module might be bad I ordered a replacement. Swapped it in and same issue. My module looks perfect. No corrosion, no evidence of water damage, not even any dust. It looks brand new. Nothing burned out on the inside either. I am guessing that the module is fine and the scanner is the problem, but I wanted to see if anyone else has had this communication issue.

I know of a couple common reasons why the ESP BAS lights come on but none seem directly related to my issue. The big difference being that my car will not start and drive but it does crank over. Most issues like the brake switch, wheel speed sensors, and steering angle sensor will default to a different failure state. Before this the car was perfect. I had never seen any of these lights before.

Anyone been able to communicate to the ESP module using the i980 scanner?

tusabes

Have you changed the cps ? Try that it's a $30 part

_Ryan

I don't feel like shotgunning parts at this thing. That is why I bought the scanner. I want to definitively know what is wrong so that I can replace the part and be assured that the car won't die on me again in the middle of rush hour traffic downtown Boston. I need a scanner that works.

$30 for a CPS, $20 for a brake switch, $100 for a steering angle sensor, $100 for an ESP module, it adds up and still doesn't give reassurance that the problem is fixed and won't happen again.

tusabes

It's not shot gunning . A car that will crank but not restart when hot , but will restart once it cools off is classic cps failure , a code reader will not usually indicate a CPS failure. Not even star will see it.

Now you can be stubborn and keep wanting a magic scanner that will pinpoint the exact problem , which does not exist - or you can replace a common failure prone part that exhibits the exact symptom you described . Your choice .

_Ryan

But that isn't the full issue. Does a cps cause esp bas and abs lights to activate? The car will occasionally not start even when cold. Hot or cold seems to have no bearing.

Has anyone been able to successfully use the i980 to communicate with the esp module in a w220?

ibeforreal

How old is your battery? Might sound a bit crazy to you but a weak battery can pull in all kinds of electrical gremlins on these cars.

Before my battery was replaced the doors would just randomly lock and unlock while driving, the headlights would occasionally dim and then brighten, warning lights intermittently coming on, etc.

Although the battery tested OK at the local auto parts store it still wasn't strong enough to run all of the electronics on the car. Replaced battery and all of a sudden everything worked the way is was designed.

Tsy

i use the same skanner to scan abs, no problem.

_Ryan

As an update, the scanner will i980 scan abs but not the esp module or a couple of other modules.

I ended up getting the DAS/STAR system right after this post and it connected perfectly to all modules.

To anyone looking to buy the i980 to do any serious work, I wouldn't waste the money. It does connect to a lot of modules and it can monitor some basic things, read a lot of fault codes, but that's the end of it. If you run into big issues, you are still left without being able to solve the problem, or if a problem exists in a module that you can't connect to, you are out of luck. DAS is so incredibly powerful. It is a lot of money, but one time to a good repair shop to get something diagnosed and you end up paying more than the full system. The i980 is simple in operation and easy to use. I still use it occasionally if I just want to check a quick fault or monitor something. The DAS takes more time to use and is a lot more cumbersome.

jc98c230

FIXED! Using the iCarSoft i980 scanner, I got the ECU comm error when I selected the SRS test on my 2009 MercBenz C300 W204. Per icarsoft support emails with Barnett Davies, I selected 176 A Class then 176.044 A250 then SRS test and it worked, read codes and cleared codes. Great support from iCarsoft! My problem was driver side seat buckle - wire from buckle to connector was intermittently open when checked with ohm meter (should be 100 ohms latched, 400 ohms unlatched). I soldered a 100ohm resistor bypass on blue / yellow wires and used the i980 to clear the fault message on the dashboard. There is a Youtube vid on this.

Mred2221

On ml350