Hey guys,

I have a 2009 C350. The car will not crank when you try to start. All the dash lights come on no problem and I even tried to jump start it but that did not do anything. I also did notice that the car will not shift out of P.

The car is currently parked in a parking garage at my work.

I did some research and it says that it might be the ignition switch or a component in the steering. More or less my question is has anyone had any luck getting theirs to start in the same situation? I was at least trying to get mine to my house so that I can do more proper diagnostics.

 

The only hint is to try banging on the bottom of the steering column with the key inserted which may help if the ESL motor is failing. Can you turn the steering wheel or is it locked ?

 

I can turn the wheel, it is not locked. The car also will not come out of "Park"

 

If the lights come on then it is not steering lock.

If need be you can get the car in neutral by releasing the trim around the shift knob and pushing in the yellow/colored tab (in case of tow)

Battery?

 

Yea the dash lights come on no problem.

Ah okay. Good info on the Neutral release

The battery should okay. It was manufactured in 2017. Plus most of the time which is almost all of the time now the car stays in the garage and when it is in there it is put on the battery tender.


I did try one thing. I set the Panic alarm off on the car and put the key in the ignition to see if it would disable it and it did. So I want to say that the ignition is okay.

 

If you insert the ignition key, do you hear the whirr sound, or nothing-?

Myne was the ignition key, but it could shift out of park to load on flatbed, and the doors unlock lock and the lights worked. what is the battery voltage-?.

 

I never really paid attention to any sounds when I put the key in. Usually the only sound I remember hearing was the steering wheel coming down when the door is closed.

I have not checked the voltage on the battery.

 

*Update*

I checked out a few things on the car.

Battery Voltage: 12.53
Diagnostics Tool: It did not find anything new but an old code that I have been aware of P0455.

I turned the key to try to start the car and no noises were made from the car. I also noticed that the Radio or HVAC controls did not power up.

 

Hi, as you bring the key near the slot, then insert it=you should hear a sound as it accepts the key, you have not turned the key yet at that stage. If you hear nothing, it maybe that steering lock faulty. The steering lock is cheap compared to the EIS modules.
In my cars case they 1st replace the EIS, did not solve the problem, then at the end replaced the steering lock which solved the problem. Go to a similar car if you can to hear the whirr sound(My description)..

The voltage is ok.

 

Ah okay. Yea there is no sound at all.

 

Was the car running fine and then the next time you got i the car nothinh happened? If so, are you sure it isn't the battery? Maybe have it load tested. Not unusual to have a battery go out of the blue with no warning, even if it not that old. Simple and easy enough to get checked.

 

Yeah it was working fine, no issue. Yesterday morning when I started it I did notice that it took slightly longer to start than normal. Then when I went out a few hours later to start it again and it did not do anything. The battery was manufactured in 2017 but I will check it out and see.

Currently the car is back at my house. I had it towed there since my roadside assistance via Allstate covers it. So I will have more tools to work with now that it is in the garage.

 

*Update*

It looks to be the Electric Steering Lock on the car. I had another diagnostics computer (a more in depth one) hooked up to the car and it came back with that.

I think the dealership quoted me $1600 to do this the other day. I am going to price check a few other places with the computers and technology to do this and see what the cost is going to be.

 

If its the steering lock, in advance, welcome to Mercedes Sudden-Death.

 

As you probably know, there are places that specialize in ESL repair, usually suggesting an emulator replace the steering lock module, Pressertech in GA and a place in TX whose name I forget, plus others. Involves sending them the ESL and your key/ sometimes the EIS(ignition) so they can reformat things, YouTube has videos where the small motor in the ESL is replaced, assuming your ESL is not locked..you can turn the steering wheel. The possibility remains that the ESL circuit board may have failed, not the motor but less likely.

Most online sites have instructions on how to remove the ESL....it's a pain and these instructions don't mention things like , when you remove the steering wheel, airbag, et. al, there's an angle sensor that needs to be noted and replaced exactly or your steering angle data sent to various other modules is off, plus a torture job laying on your back over the door sill trying to unbolt the steering column.

$1,600 is one of the better MB dealer quotes, and has been mentioned a few times..some reach $2,000+

Good Luck...My 09 with 65K miles receives the "leave the key in it as much as possible" treatment. Has a bit of a battery drain but car gets driven often enough so not a problem...maybe kills batteries a bit faster since I'm on my third one in 10 years.

 

How many kilos has your car-? Mercedes should have no excuses for this problem, really. One of the initial adverts was this model was tested for 25Million kilometers.

 

If it is the ESL issue in the OP's car it did last 10 years before it failed. How long is an acceptable amount of time?

 

Out of previous non mercedes experience I would excpect 300 000Km to last, because the ESL is mechanical part, and if the japanese can do it so should the germans more so be able to do it, I paid far less for the jap vehicle.

 

It isn't exclusively about how many miles/kilometers for a part like this. I would think how many start/stop cycles it sees would be more important than just the distance the car traveled, along with maybe the enviroment it lives in, etc. Someone that drives 100 kilometers a day in a single drive I would think would put less strain on a part like that than someone that makes a lot of small trips around town every day and turns the car on and off a lot.

 

I get what you mean, but this car(merc) has not by far had as many starts as the jap vehicle(Mazda) with which I drove/drive short trips in town and for years to work & and during work it did also 50-200km trips regularly, so in this regard there is in my case just no comparison.
Actually on the Mazda it was my righthand door switch that failed, so afraid of locking myself out, I had all the switches replaced by the electrical shop, but I say this the ignition switch was schetchy at that stage, the keys was worn visibly.

So heres another diff:The Mazda was giving me warningsigns for last months, while the Merc was instant and totally unexpected. thats why I still got the Mazda(Secure backup-No EU genes in it)

 

The Mazda probably doesn't have an ESL like the Mercedes does either. I'm not saying the Mercedes design is the best and seems to have an inordinate amount of cars that have had that part go out on the earlier pre-facelift cars. All I am saying is, that in the OP's car, it lasted 10 years, which isn't exactly a short amount of time. After that amount of time things start to wear out on a lot of parts on a lot of different kinds of cars. My son had a 2007 Honda Accord. After about 5 years the starter went out without any warning. Now that kind of surprised me.

 

Hey guys. Sorry been busy the past few days trying to get this resolved.

Milage: 128,000 for the people asking.


So I rang up MBUSA and opened up a case more or less with the help of a customer service agent. This is basically where they request a invoice for the cost of the repair for the work and I submit it to them and they review and look at covering it full, or partial, or not at all out of "good will".

I tried to do this on Wednesday but the Service Advisor that I got on the phone was terrible (My normal one that I used for years retired). After calling him multiple times explaining what I need he never got it to me in 48 hrs. At this point I contact the Service Manager which provided me this in 30 mins.

With that being said, the same Service Advisor quoted me $1600 on the phone on Tuesday. When I got the estimate that I was submitting to MBUSA from the Service Manager, the total was $1340.40

Then I ask if I need to turn the car in and have them diagnose it and such and they said yes they recommend I do so, then at that point I asked if there were any loaner cars. They informed me that there will not be any avaliable for several days. (The Service Advisor on Monday/Tuesday when I talked to him made it sound like they were readily avaliable. Slightly frustratining on that part.

At this current time I am waiting for MBUSA to get back to me with what they are going to do as far as covering this out of "good will".

 

I guess it never hurts to ask, but seeing as it is a 10 year car with 128,000 miles I would consider it a miracle if they did anything for you. It has been a known issue for a long time and others have gone your route without any luck from MB. But good luck just the same. Let us know what they say.

 

A bit of an update.

So MBUSA got back to me and offered to pay 10% of the repair and the dealer would do 10% also, in total leaving 80% for me to pay before tax.

I emailed the service adviser and asked if you would match what I would pay out of pocket from another place that quoted me $800 for the work. Basically taking the total $1340.40 and discounting it to $1000 then doing the 20% and leaving me to pay $800 at the dealership. I am waiting on a reply on that to see what they will say. If he does not want to match the price I will just take it to the shop that will do it for $800.

 

I dont think thats an unreasonable request at all, still a lot on money for a starter switch fail.