Hi all,

Need some advice. Please bear me with me as the story is a little lengthy.

Few months ago, my C-class W204 (Facelifted) petrol 4matic 72k KM mileage experienced the following symptoms:

1. Random violent chokes/shudder while driving
2. Random dead engine while driving with check engine light illuminated. Engine operation can be restored by restarting car. After restarting, engine would run fine without check engine light or any other alarms whatsoever. It would behave healthy.

The said symptoms were random. The car can be driven completely fine for a few days, then said symptoms will come the following day. Took car to local indie mechanic, who told me my car battery was weak, causing these symptoms and possibly damaged the engine control unit (ECU). He said that the battery brand that I was using on the car is bad and Mercedes car needed to use a certain brand (I won't name them here). I doubted his theory as I cannot see how a weak car battery can damage the ECU. Please correct me if I am wrong. Nevertheless, car battery was replaced with new as this was done when I am away from town (my dad handled it). After battery replacement, car ran fine for a week or so but started experiencing said symptoms again. One morning, car just wouldn't start in my porch. It failed to start throughout the day but successfully started up at night on one random try. I then took it for a ride and car ran just fine without any alarm indications. Car ran fine for a few days and then would not start again in car porch. Tried to start it for a few days but no luck. Called indie mechanic, he plugged OBDII scanner and could not pull any fault codes. He said its probably a dead ECU and disconnected battery from car. I decided to call Mercedes dealership to do a proper diagnostic and they sent a technician who also "diagnosed" the car to have a dead ECU (I wasn't there as I was out of town for work again, so I could not see how he check the car. My dad handled it). Mercedes dealership quoted us approx. $2K for ECU replacement. Indie mechanic told us the job can be done by simply replacing ECU with a second-hand. Second-hand ECU (which belongs to another W204), along with its electronic steering lock (ESL), electronic ignition switch (EIS) and key fobs would cost approx. $700. Dad went with the second-hand ECU since it's much cheaper and indie mechanic told us its a plug and play thing.

So then, after replacement of ECU, ESL ans EIS by indie mechanic, car could not start. He said ECU needed to be programmed. Suspected second-hand ECU had a different chassis number (VIN) programmed into it and therefore could not start in my car. Car started fine after programming was done by another indie mechanic. Just the programming itself costed me approx. $500. So now car can be started and run just fine, but its COMAND unit is giving "anti-theft protection activated" notice and I cannot use it. Seems like it has been locked out. It seems to me that changing the ECU has caused this, since the COMAND unit is likely linked to the VIN and will probably do a validation during start up. If the VIN of the ECU is not identical to the one registered in the COMAND unit, it will lock up. That's my guess. I've asked Mercedes dealership lead mechanic and he told me the same thing. I told him that I would like to take the car to dealership and see whether they can fix this COMAND locked-out problem for me. But he told me that if they connect my car to STARS, the current ECU (which is second-hand) might be locked out too since STARS will probably detect that the ECU does not originally belong to this car. I believe him as I don't think he has a reason to lie to me (I also happen to know him but we are not close). But he isn't sure and that I would have to take the risk myself. I am considering just letting dealership replace the ECU with brand new by paying the full price ($2000) and get this problem over with as this car has been on downtime for about 3 months. But now another issue arises. To replace the ECU with brand new by Mercedes dealership, they need to have the original ESL and EIS installed. As mentioned above, the ESL and EIS were also replaced with second-hand (one set with the ECU) by indie mechanic. The indie mechanic told me that the existing original ESL cannot be used anymore and I have also read that W204 does have ESL issue. Now I cannot make sure whether my car's original ESL is faulty (or was faulty, causing a no-start, but unlikely since ESL wouldn't cause car to randomly fail while driving on highway). Even if the ESL is not faulty, I would need to pay extra manhour for dealership to once again reinstall the original ESL and EIS into the car, and then proceed with the ECU replacement job. If, after the ESL has been re-installed and it was found to be faulty, they would need to replace it with new, and that alone will cause an additional $2000. Currently the car is still at the indie workshop and they are trying to do some sort of coding in attempts to unlock the COMAND unit. But I have read on forums that it is impossible to obtain the unlock PIN. Only replacing the COMAND unit with new by dealership would cost approx. $6.8K, as told me personally by dealership lead technician. So what are my options? Please give me some advice as I am currently stuck. I am considering installing aftermarket android player on the car, but would that work? Will the aftermarket android player affect the quality of the original speaker?

Please help! Perhaps someone came across this problem before. Do let me know if more info is needed. I will also update this thread.

Many thanks in advance!

 

I’m having a similar issue. I replaced the ECU with a used one, reprogrammed it, and now my car is running and driving even better than before. However, the Command screen locked (anti-theft feature) . Have you found a solution to this problem? I know it’s an old post, but I’d really appreciate any help you can provide.
thank you

 

Did you change the EZS too?

 

@BenzNinja can provide the unlock code. He gets it from Mercedes. Reach out to him at info@benzninja.com.

 

I will give the Antiteft for free, only because you don't know from where he get it.

​​​​​​

 

He gets it from Mercedes. When I lost my code (or it became corrupted) on my 2014 C350, he had to submit a request for the code from Mercedes and it took overnight to get it.

Where do you get your codes?

 

​​​​​
​​​​​​Yeah, sure....I get the codes from the same place. Did you pay for this "submitted request"?

 

I did, though BenzNinja was willing to do it for free. It was worth it to me to pay for the service instead of scheduling something with the dealer, etc.

 

Next time ask me, I will give the Pin for free

 

I appreciate the offer. As I said, BenzNinja was going to do it for free, but I insisted on paying a nominal fee for the service.

 

IT'S HU5S1 MEB520F3192378
VIN: WDD2122011B210241

 

Here you have to post for the first time,

https://mbworld.org/forums/new-membe...w-members.html


PIN HSN6CSTLK2Q2L1EWZD7WIWOVG

 

Thanks a lot. You are first 🥇 who answer simply without any mystery, dangerous thinks. Don't push the red button Greetings from Poland, all the best, and God bless you. We are in contact.

 

Would you Please see the below mentioned car vin for in which I changed the whole system (ECU ESL EZS).
I did everything I need to make the car running.

Now I am facing the problem in the command control module that shows the massage "Anti-theft Protection activated. Service Required"

What should I do?

Is requesting a new pin code will solve the problem?

If it does can you provide me with the pin code that will make the command work again please?

Thanks in advance for your help

VIN of the car:
WDDHF8JB4EA811386
Command sn: ME6950D8050138

 

Would you Please see the below mentioned car vin for in which I changed the whole system (ECU ESL EZS).
I did everything I need to make the car running.

Now I am facing the problem in the command control module that shows the massage "Anti-theft Protection activated. Service Required"

What should I do?

Is requesting a new pin code will solve the problem?

If it does can you provide me with the pin code that will make the command work again please?

Thanks in advance for your help

VIN of the car:
WDDHF8JB4EA811386
Command sn: ME6950D8050138

 

Try this

ME6950D8050138PIN VZNSXOMDE17DQXC92203IID89

 

Hi trigital,

Just wanted to drop a massive **THANK YOU**! 🎉
I entered the code you provided into the command, and it worked "perfectly"—no errors, no hiccups. You saved me hours of headaches (and probably a trip to the dealership)!

Your expertise and willingness to help made all the difference. Forums like this are gold because of members like you.

Thanks again for sharing your knowledge—you’re a legend! 🚗💨

Best regards,
Zaemadi

 

Hello.
Can you help me?
Thanks in advance.

WDD2040481A795528

 

Why you want the Antiteft code? Did you change the EZS? Share your experience, maybe you will add some contribution.

 

Sure.

I have an C180 and it has an line damaged from the original ECU, and one ignition coil signal doesn´t work.

I had bought a new one from Ebay, flashed, but it show this message:


That´s basically.

I have contacted seller if he can help me, but if he can´t help me with it, I ask here for help.

 

Better edit your post, as here the ignition coil or ECU is kinda off topic.

Maybe you are referring to the Radio and if this is not the original from factory, for generating the Pin code it will need the Serial number, not the VIN.

 

I´ve already fix the ignition coil problem replacing the ECU, the car now run just fine.

But, when you replace the ECU, the new one doesn´t has the Anti Theft code for the OEM radio, that´s why.

I will search the radio code.

Thanks.

 

Did you change ECU together with the EZS? Radio Antiteft is only compared with the EZS.

Do you have any programs for enabling the Pin?

 

No, EZS are car´s original.

I do have Sentry Star Diagnosys.

 

If your Radio has Serial number

PA1137C0589132
(can be easily read it with Xentry)

The Pin is:

7SV4JMX8Y4TZRQNZRF2RN5D6Y