ChrisBrown

Picked up my car from the dealer earlier in the day. I got a rotation/balance and an alignment done. Car was good, clean and straight again.

Got back to work. Worked. Came back outside to leave, started the car, pushed the brake, and the shifter was locked hard in P.

Left the key in, tried to restart the car. No dice.

Pulled the key out, put it back in, tried again, worked.

Drove to my exercise place to get a new door key. Tried to shift out of P, stuck again. Called the dealer. Roadside assistance said it would be 100 minutes until a tow truck would be where I was. I called my SA back, and he said they would come and pick me up with a new car for me to go home in.

I said hold on, let me try one more time to manually release the shifter. 10 minutes of poking and prodding, and I get the shifter to release. I drive to the dealer, they give me a car, and I head home. My SA thinks the first suspect is the brake position switch.

I get a call this morning. My SA says good and bad news. Good news: the brake switch is fine. Bad news. the electronic box that accepts the signal from the brake position switch and the EAS and releases the shifter and allows the transmission to be engaged.

The part is VIN coded to the car. It takes 2-3 days to arrive from Mercedes.

Cost before any discounts: $1100 parts and labor.

My SA is figuring out what he can do for a discount off the top. He's promising me that I won't pay full price.

He says I can keep my loaner GLK over the weekend and as long as necessary for no charge.

LILBENZ230

$1100?

at the "no charge" for keeping that GLK. And my drinks were "free" in Vegas, too.

There are other members who have had this issue and it has turned out to be a plastic part that has weakened and broken over time. We're talking like a 75 cent piece and they're replaced it themselves and been good. The dealer, in typical dealer fashion, is not interested in any actual diagnosis or any actual repair. They replace parts. So, they're probably replacing the entire unit instead of the one small part. It's like the Toyota dealership telling me that they'd need to replace the whole door panel for $400 to replace a 10 cent piece of plastic causing the door not to open on our Camry once.

It's your money, but the dealer is ridiculous.

samaritrey

Did he happen to give you a PN it would be interesting to see what he is talking about that is vin coded.

Glyn M Ruck

Chris - possibly something fishy here. Your car is a facelift. It has no brake switch. Get them to explain the interlock malfunction to you & exactly what module they intend replacing. There is a cable adjustment on the interlock from the brake pedal.

ChrisBrown

@LILBENZ230, it's not the part you are referencing. If it was, I wouldn't have been able to manually override the gear shift level and get the car out of park.

I'm going to have to get the paperwork. It's an electronic module that gets a signal once the brake pedal is depressed that allows the shifter to be moved from the park position. Code was thrown showing a failure of that module.

It's on order from Mercedes. My VIN has to get assigned to the module before it can be installed.

Glyn M Ruck

It's possibly the BAS/ESP module then. Does your car have an electronic interlock? It could also be N15/5 - Electronic shifter module (ESM) or the EIS itself.

SA cars have always had an electronic interlock but it was due to the alarm system fitted here. Most US cars with 722.6 have had cable interlock. This is interesting - it is not reflected as a facelift change. It might have changed from the so called 2004.5 models in the US.

SeaCoupe

Before spending all of the money, disconnect all of the connectors at the shift unit. Chances are the unit will shift again. Als, insure you have no physical obstructions in the shift mechanism itself.

Glyn M Ruck

Ed's been down this road!

SeaCoupe

Don't I know it. Luckily, I keep getting away with easy fixes. Knock on wood.

By obstuructions, make sure you don't have any coins, kids toys preventing the shifter from moving. Sometimes objects have a way of working their way under the shiftter ring. I know that some cars have a shift button at the rear of the shift selection box that you access by removing the center console and pushing it in. But on the off chance you have what happened to my shifter here is more specific info.

My shifter would get stuck in gear. Noapparent reason for it, it just would. I would actually have my key stuck in the car if it happened in Drive.

If it happened in park, I could remove my key. I thought I had a failure in the trans, and really wasn't sure. My shadetree solutions was to take everything apart. Well, low and behold, once I pulled off my shifter box, and all of the plugs into the box were pulled, the shifter literally started shifting again while it was unmounted. So, it lead me to beleive that every so often they get buggy, get stuck in gear, and need to have the power unapplied to reset/readapt/whatever. Mutch cheaper than having the pay over $500 in the part and the hours of labor MB will charge you.

Here is a bad pic. But the connectors are up at the front of the mechanism. If you lift the shift surround and the center console fascia it is easy to get to. I'd also check the connection of the brake cable at the front right if your car has one.

Ed

ChrisBrown

I'd check, but the car is stored in Schumacher's garage at the moment over the weekend.

At least the kids like the brand new GLK they gave me :-)

My son says, "Daddy I love this car. I love the sky window!"

He seems to share my same love of pano roofs.

ChrisBrown

Well I got the car back. It was the ESM.

Parts 203-267-89-24 and 000-994-50-60

My SA took 15% off of the bill which saved me close to $200.

From what I've been reading here, ESM failures on the W203 are not common. However the SL R230 guys seem to have ESM failures on a more regular basis.

SeaCoupe

What is the ESM?

C230 Sport Coup

Funny how 2 minutes out of a dealer you need a grand in repairs.
I haven't needed anything that any other car wouldn't have needed since I quit going to the dealer.
Especially after I busted 2 dealers for claiming to put parts in they never replaced.
I think you got F'ed.!

Russell Ormerod

ESM = Electronic Selector lever module
it senses what gear you have selected and transmits the data via CAN to your gearbox. it also is used to switch on the reverse lamps, it has soleniod inside that will only activate when the brake pedal is pressed or a certain bar pressure has been built up in the brake lines. it also prevents you from selecting reverse above a certain speed, they are not that troublesome as like on the old W210 and 168 models, but i have seen a few fail.

Glyn M Ruck

Pleased she's fixed Chris. ESM failures are indeed rare on the W203

LILBENZ230

So can anyone confirm - VIN coded to car or no?

ChrisBrown

That is what I was told. My understanding is that is works with EIS.

Glyn M Ruck

This thing is probably genuine but I think we all need to start demanding the Star printouts. We are paying for the diagnosis.

ChrisBrown

I will scan my receipt tonight and post it tomorrow once I'm back at the office.

SeaCoupe

So is the ESM a module inside the dash area, or is that the shift selection box? Possible a module inside the box? Because from what I read, it sounds exactly like the plastic box that the shift lever is mounted to.

Which was the problem I had. I reset my shift box by unplugging the power for some time, and viola, the shifter started shifting.

Ed

Russell Ormerod

ESM is the gear shift module itself and NO it is not VIN coded, like on the W220 models. they are interchangable, and does not affect drive authorisation

LILBENZ230

As usual, the dealer scams another customer.

ChrisBrown

LILBENZ230 I appreciate your enthusiasm. However, the ESM failed and it needed to be replaced, and well...that isn't a scam.

Also, I just don't have the time with a wife, three kids, a full time job, and a consulting gig on the side to DIY this one. Plus, most Indy's around here don't have shuttles or loaner car, and with my meeting schedule, I need a vehicle to get from one place to another.

My SA takes care of me. The dealer has taken care of my whole family and treated us like kings. I constantly get 15-30% off of my service bills without asking.

Does it cost more than an Indy? Absolutely. But the service, honesty, and five year relationship that I have with my SA and the dealer (plus the additional years with my father's 3 Mercedes and my sister's two cars) are more than worth the money.

Sometimes it's about more than saving a dollar. I know what I'm getting at Schumacher European, and it's consistent and good.

LILBENZ230

None of this was the point. It's fine if you want to take your car to a dealer and spend multiple times over what the actual cost is. That's your right seeing as that it is your car and your money.

It is ironic that even though Russell has pointed out that the ESM is not VIN coded as your dealership lied to you about, you still list "honesty" as a reason for going there.

My post was likely too brief. The point is that dealerships lie to their customers, even the faithful ones like you. They also do not properly diagnose or ever actually repair anything, they simply replace parts at huge cost. If this is worth it to you for a loaner car, that's your call. I say this not to pick at you at all, your car is fixed and you are satisfied and that is all that matters. I say it so that someone who has this problem in the future and searches the W203 forum for "stuck in park" or something like that will hopefully find this thread and realize that there is another way.

Russell Ormerod

The unfortunate fact is, the so called technicians at dealerships, dont have a clue on how mercedes benz electronics actually are designed to function. there are probably a handfull worldwide that have the know how and passion to fix these weird problems. You need to have grown up with these cars like from when the W140 was produced, to understand how the electronics have developed. secondly it takes time to diagnose electronics and i mean lots of time, so the dealer reckons we make more money just replacing that actually diagnosing, at the end of the day the customer pays and the technician learns nothing.