az1324

My aunt's C320 had a problem where the car was hard to start. She would have to play around with the ignition key. And once when she was driving the car the entire electronic system shut down (lights, radio, nav, everything! ) while in the middle of driving! Also the remote keyless did not always work.

She took it to the stealership and they replaced the ignition switch ($900!). The remote keyless still wasn't working reliably and the same shut down occurred again a week later!

When she told me about this I immediately thought it was an immobilizer/security problem. But what does that have to do with the ignition switch? Is the communication with key done through an integrated component of the ignition switch such that the whole thing needs to be replaced to fix that? And shouldn't the fact that the keyless was also acting up be a signal that it was more than just that? Furthermore, I do not know how the Mercedes immobilizer is designed, but in all other cars I have known there is only an authentication during startup and not while driving such that if the key loses communication the car would not shut down like that.

So please advise me if you have any information on the immobilizer and whether it is part of a larger subsystem, etc...

Also if you have some advice regarding the stealership and the fact that they already installed a new ignition switch for $900 and it did not help. Where does she go from here?

Thanks.