So I was on my way to work and I see my neighbor tinkering with his car. He has a c230 and I can tell that he doesn't have a lot of experience with the car. Didn't have the hood all the way up to work on the car and he was working on the battery.

I get out and ask him what he was doing and then I noticed the power wire to the battery is cut. Apparently the car had gone crazy with the fan turning on, the headlights coming on, etc. So they are trying to get the car to turn off and they could not find the correct socket to disconnect it, so they cut it. Of all places they cut it at the power wire where it connects to another wire.

It had rained hard the day before and the car had been sitting for a few days, so they thought it had some thing to do with that. He said he managed to start the car with the wires touching the battery terminal, but after that he could not get the car started again. I attempted to start it myself and it didn't even click. There was power to the car, but I'm thinking that the battery is bad or low. Looked to be the original Mercedes battery.

I'm guessing that the battery along with the cut cables is the culprit, but I can't explain why the car had the head lights flashing and the fan coming on. Too me it sounds like the alarm had gone off causing the lights to flash, but I was under the impression that it was the headlights that were flashing.

I've done some research and I am thinking that water could have gotten in to the front sam and maybe it's causing some of these problems. I wish I could have helped him out a bit more, first time I've met him, but I had to head back to work.

What do you think could be the problem? CPS, TPS, battery, SAM? Is there a replacement power cable? He's just trying to put a replacement terminal, but I don't know how successful he is going to be.