Juuju_o

Hi, so my 08 c300 won't start. Battery has full power, and the tech that came out thought it may be an electronic steering lock issue. Anyone have experience with this? Thanks! Just hoping this is something simple vs. a $1500 fix. SOS

mais821

The tech is probably right. Try the search bar. There are a lot of threads on ESL/EIS, including DIY fixes.

Colin G

One thread a week pops up on this.


The steering locks are ticking time bombs and the reason while I'll never take my 2008 on a road trip. Who wants this to happen in the middle of nowhere?


ESL dies due to a bad motor. EIS failures are another ball of wax.

michail71

I would say tens of thousands of people have had experience with it judging by the posts.

Someone makes replacement ESL emulators for the car. They trick the car into thinking it has a working lock.

But once it actually fails the problem gets much more expensive as I think it also takes out the EIS resulting a couple thousand dollars in repairs.

There have been reports of old ESLs being impacted by only slight battery drops.